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ate    id*  ^ 


ESSAYS    AND    POEMS: 


BY 


JONES    VERY 


BOSTON: 

CHARLES   C.  LITTLE  AND   JAMES  BROWN. 


MDCCCXXX1X. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1839,  by 

CHARLES  C.  LITTLE  AND  JAMES  BROWN, 
In  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  Massachusetts, 


Dotton  &  Wentworth,  Print. 


TO 

EDWARD   TYRREL   CHANNING, 

BOYLSTON    PROFESSOR   IN    HARVARD    UNIVERSITY, 

THIS  VOLUME  IS  INSCRIBED, 

AS  A  TOKEN  OP  GRATITUDE, 

BY  THE  AUTHOR. 


974010 


CONTENTS. 


ESSAYS. 

Epic  Poetry,    ...  1 

Shakspeare,            .            .            .                                  .•.',!  39 

Hamlet,            .                                                                        .  83 

POEMS. 

^'To  the  Humming  Bird,      .....  107 

Eheu !  fugaces,  Posthume,  Posthume,  Lahuntur  anni,          .  109 

Lines  to  a  withered  leaf  seen  on  a  poet's  table,   .            .  110 

Memory,           .                                                ...  Ill 

•'•To  the  painted  Columbine,            ....  112 

-,   To  the  Fossil  Flower,              ,|fc                                            .  114 

v/To  the  Canary  Bird,          .                        .            .            .  117 

v   Nature, ft/tig         •  118 

,y  The  Tree, L-o^gS     v-i  ,  *W 

The  Stranger's  Gift,    .            .            .            .\         ..,"       .  120 

Thy  beauty  fades,              .                                    .  121 
Beauty,        |gj  ...                        .                        .122 

^-The  Wind-Flower,  ......  .123 

u-The  Robin,      .      j '  .  •          .                                  .  124 

(>The  Columbine,      ....                        ,.,v  125 

The  New  Birth,           •-,  •        •                                              •  126 

V  The  Son,     .           .           .  f         .           .  127 

/xln  Him  we  live,           .*         .           .           .          .».  -        -  128 

V^noch,        .           .           .  -        .           .           .*V       -v  129 


VI  CONTENTS. 


The  Mornimg  Watch, 
The  Living  God,    .        v  .    ;        . 
The  Garden,   .... 
I   The  Song, 
Love,    .           .           '*.- 

.      130 
131 
-A            .            .      132 
133 
134 

Day, 

Night,  .... 

.  .          .            .            135 
136 

x^The  Latter  Rain,    . 

137 

The  Slave,       .            .            .    -        . 

.      138 

Bread,         .            .            . 

139 

The  Spiiit  Land, 

.      140 

Worship,     .... 

,  ~       141 

The  Soldier,     . 

.      142 

The  Trees  of  Life, 

143 

The  Spirit,       .            .           ..'... 

.144 

[JPhe  Presence, 

...;      ^.     :            145 

The  Dead,       .            .            . 

.146 

I  was  sick  and  in  prison, 

147 

>The  Violet,      .            .            .       .....$< 

.            .            .148 

The  Heart, 

149 

The  Robe,        .... 

.150 

v^Life,            .            ...            .£, 

151 

The  War, 

.      152 

The  Grave  Yard,  .           . 

153 

\,--Thy  Brother's  Blood, 

.      154 

The  Jew,     .... 

155 

Faith,   ..... 

.156 

The  Ark,    .            .    1       . 

157 

The  Earth,       . 

.      158 

The  Rose,  .         ... 

159 

Morning,           .            .            . 

.  ^       .      160 

^-  Nature,       .... 

161 

Change, 

.      162 

The  Poor,  .         ... 

.      ;    .;          163 

The  Clay,,     '^*;       ,           . 

V-       .      164 

CONTENTS.  Vll 

Who  hath  ears  to  hear  let  him  hear,          .            .            .  165 

To  the  pure  all  things  are  pure,          .            .            .            .  166 

He  was  acquainted  with  grief,  1G7 

Ye  gave  me  no  meat,                                      .v  168 

The  Acorn, -  :  ,  169 

The  Rail  Road, 170 

vThe  Disciple, 171 

Time, .172 

The  Call,    .  173 

The  Cottage,   .                                              ...  174 

The  Prayer, 175 


EPIC    POETRY. 


THE  poets  of  the  present  day  who  would  raise  the 
epic  song  cry  out,  like  Archimedes  of  old,  "  give  us 
a  place  to  stand  on  and  we  will  move  the  world." 
This  is,  as  we  conceive.,  the  true  difficulty. .  Glanc- 
ing for  a  moment  at  the  progress  of:  epic  poetry,  we 
shall  see  that  the  obscurity  of  fabulous  times  could 
be  adapted  to  the  earliest  deyelopnlenlr  only  x)f  '*tbe" 
heroic  character.  There  is  an  obvious  incongruity 
in  making  times  so  far  remote  the  theatre  on  which 
to  represent  the  heroism  of  a  civilized  age ;  and  it 
adds  still  more  to  the  difficulty,  that,  although  the 
darkness  of  fable  still  invests  them,  reason  will  no 
longer  perceive  the  beings  which  the  infant  credulity 
of  man  once  saw  there. 

To  men  in  the  early  stages  of  society  their  phys- 
ical existence   must  seem  almost  without  end,  and 
they  live  on  through  life  with  as  little  reference  to 
1 


V  EPIC    POETRY.- 

another  state  of  being  as  we  ourselves  do  in  child- 
hood. To  minds  in  this  state  there  was  a  remoteness' 
in  an  event  which  had  taken  place  one  or  two 
centuries  before,  of  which  we  cannot  ^conceive,  and 
which  rendered  the  time  that  Homer  had  chosen  for 
his  subject,  though  not  materially  differing  in  charac- 
ter, sufficiently  remote  for  his  purpose.  If  to  these 
advantages  possessed  by  Homer  we  add  those  which 
belonged  to  him  from  the  religion  of  his  times  and 
from  tradition,  whose  voice  is  to  the  poet  more 
friendly  than  the  plain  written  records  of  history, 
we  must  confess  that  the  spot  on  which  he  built  up 
his  scenes  of  heroic  wonder  was  peculiarly  favor- 
able. The  advance,  which  the  human  mind  had 

r,,niade  towards  civilization,  prevented  Virgil  from 
, making  a '  l&fr  impression  on  his  own  age.  To 
^awaken^  admiration,  he.  too  was  obliged  to  break 

-'  'froRfAke  bonds  of  the  present,  and  soar  beyond  the 
bounds  of  history,  before  he  could  throw  his  spell  of 
power  over  the  mind.  Why  had  he  less  influence  ? 
Because  he  could  not,  like  Homer,  carry  into  the 
past  the  spirit  of  his  times.  To  the  enlarged  minds 
of  Virgil's  day,  the  interval  between  the  siege  of 
Troy  and  their  own  time  did  not  seem  wider  than  it 
did  to  those  who  lived  in  the  time  of  Homer.  The 
true  distance  in  time  was  chosen  by  each,  but  the 
character  of  ^Eneas  did  not  possess  those  great 
attributes  which  could  render  it  the  Achilles  of  the 


EPIC    POETRY.  3% 

Romans.  Lucan,  while  his  characters  exhibit  the 
true  heroic  spirit  of  his  age,  fails  of  giving  to  them 
their  due  influence,  from  the  want  of  some  region  of 
fiction  'beyond  the  dominion  of  history  in  which  to 
place  them.  He  cannot  break  from  the  present  with- 
out violating  every  law  of  probability.  To  escape 
this  thraldom  and  reach  a  point  from  which  the 
heroic  character  of  their  age  might  be  seen  dilated 
to  its  full  height,  modern  poets  have  fled  beyond  the 
bounds  of  time  and  woke  the  echoes  of  eternity. 
It  was  only  from  this  point  that  the  Christian  world 
could  be  moved  5  it  is  only  in  that  region  without 
bounds,  that  the  heroism  of  immortality  can  be 
shown  in  visible  action.  Milton  and  Dante  chose 
this  spot,  on  which  with  almost  creative  power  they 
might  show  to  mankind  worlds  of  their  own,  "  won 
from  the  void  and  formless  Infinite,"  and  from 
which  their  own  heroic  spirits  might  be  reflected 
back  upon  their  own  times  in  all  their  gigantic  pro- 
portions. But  such  has  been  the  progress  of  the 
human  mind  since  their  time,  that  it  would  seem  to 
have  reached  already  another  stage  in  its  develop- 
ment, to  have  unfolded  a  new  form  of  the  heroic 
character,  one  which  finds  no  paradise,  nay,  no 
heaven  for  itself  in  the  creations  of  Milton,  and  for 
which  the  frowns  of  Dante's  hell  have  no  terror. 
This  new  page  of  the  heroic  character  naturally 
leads  us  to  inquire,  whether  we  are  to  have  no  great 


4  EPIC    POETRY. 

representation  of  it,  no  embodying  of  this  spirit  in 
some  gigantic  form  of  action,  which  shall  stalk 
before  the  age,  and  by  the  contemplation  of  which 
our  minds  may  be  fired  to  nobler  deeds. 

In  considering  this  question,  we  shall  endeavor  to 
show  what  reasons  there  are  for  not  expecting  another 
great  epic  poem,  drawn  from  the  principles  of  epic 
poetry  and  the  human  mind,  and  that  these  present 
an  insuperable  barrier  to  the  choice  of  a  subject, 
which  shall  exhibit  the  present  development  of  the 
heroic  character  in  action. 

In  doing  this  I  shall  exhibit,  by  an  analysis  of 
the  Iliad,  the  true  model  of  an  epic  poem,  its 
origin  and  peculiarities,  and  in  what  manner  those 
peculiarities  have  been  changed,  and,  at  last,  lost  by 
succeeding  poets,  according  to  the  development  of 
the  heroic  character  in  their  several  eras. 

I  shall  thus  be  led  to  show  that  the  taking  away 
of  the  peculiarities  of  epic  interest,  and  the  final 
emerging  of  that  interest  in  the  dramatic,  is  the 
natural  result  of  the  influences  to  which  the  human 
mind  in  its  progress  is  subjected  ;  and  that  that  influ- 
ence, while  it  precludes  all  former  subjects  from 
representing  the  present  development  of  the  heroic 
character,  throws,  at  the  same  time,  an  insuperable 
barrier  in  the  way  of  any  subject. 

Looking  upon  Homer,  at  least  as  regards  the  Iliad, 
as  a  single  man  speaking  throughout  with  one  accent 


EPIC    POETRY.  5 

of  voice,  one  form  of  language,  and  one  expression 
of  feeling,  we  leave  to  the  framers  of  modern  para- 
doxes the  question,  whether  this  name  is  a  type  or 
not,  and  proceed  to  consider  what  might  be  the 
probable  origin  of  the  Iliad,  and  what  it  is  which 
constitutes  it  the  true  model  of  an  epic  poem,  a  more 
perfect  visible  manifestation  of  the  heroic  character 
than  can  be  again  presented  to  the  eyes  of  man. 
In  a  philosophical  analysis  of  such  a  poem  as  the 
Iliad  or  Odyssey,  made  with  reference  to  its  epic 
peculiarities,  there  is  great  danger  of  misconceiving 
the  history  and  character  of  early  heroic  poetry, 
thus  giving  to  the  poet  a  plan  which  he  never 
formed,  or  a  moral  which  he  never  conceiv- 
ed. The  simplest  conception  of  the  origin  and 
plan  of  the  Iliad  must,  we  think,  prove  the  most 
correct.  It  originated,  doubtless,  in  that  desire, 
which  every  great  poet  must  especially  feel,  of 
revealing  to  his  age  forms  of  nobler  beauty  and 
heroism  than  dwell  in  the  minds  of  those  around 
him.  Wandering,  as  his  active  imagination  must 
have  led  him  to  do,  in  the  days  of  the  past,  Homer 
must  have  been  led  by  the  fitness  of  the  materials 
presented  to  him  in  the  siege  of  Troy,  by  their 
remoteness  from  his  own  time,  and  the  interest  with 
which  they  would  be  viewed  by  the  mass  of  his 
countrymen,  as  descendants  of  the  Grecian  heroes, 
to  the  choice  of  a  subject,  which  seemed  to  present 


b  EPIC    POETRY. 

a  worthy  form  in  which  to  manifest  the  workings  of 
his  soul.  His  enthusiasm  would  doubtless  prompt 
him  to  the  execution  of  detached  parts  before  he 
had  completed  his  general  plan,  and  the  various 
incidents,  which  constitute  so  much  of  the  charm 
and  interest  of  his  poem  as  they  suggested  them- 
selves to  his  mind,  would  also  direct  him  to  the  great 
point  round  which  they  all  revolved.  The  influence 
upon  the  several  parts,  resulting  from  the  contem- 
plation of  the  chief  character,  would  thus  give  all 
the  unity  to  the  subject  which  we  find  in  fact  to 
belong  to  the  earliest  forms  of  a  nation's  poetry. 
"  Passion  to  excite  sympathy,  variety  to  prevent  dis- 
gust flowing  in  a  free  stream  of  narrative  verse,  not 
the  intricacy  and  dove-tailing  of  modern  epics,  is  to 
be  looked  for  in  the  Iliad ;  for  it  was  not  made  like 
a  modern  epic  to  be  read  in  our  closets,  but  to  be 
presented  only  in  fragments  before  the  minds  of  an 
audience.  Thus  the  single  combats  of  Menelaus 
and  Paris,  the  funeral  games  of  Patroclus,  and  the 
restitution  and  burial  of  the  body  of  Hector  are 
generally  complete  in  themselves,  yet  having  an  ob- 
vious connexion  as  still  telling  the  same  great  tale  of 
Troy."  So  much  for  the  origin  and  fable  of  the  Iliad. 
The  genius  displayed  in  its  grand  and  compre- 
hensive design  is  only  equalled  by  the  judgment 
manifested  in  confining  the  action  to  the  busiest 
and  most  interesting  period  of  the  Trojan  war,  in 


EPIC    POETRY.  7 

thus  uniting  in  his  plan  and  bringing  forward  in  his 
details  everything  which  could  lay  hold  of  the  affec- 
tions, the  prejudices,  and  vanity  of  his  countrymen. 
Of  his  characters  we  need  only  say  that,  like  those 
of  Shakspeare,  they  are  stamped  with  nature's  own 
image  and  superscription.  Though  all  are  possessed 
of  valor  and  courage,  yet  they  are  so  distinguished 
from  one  another  by  certain  peculiarities  of  dispo- 
sition and  manners,  that  to  distinguish  them  it  is 
hardly  necessary  to  hear  their  names.  Achilles  is 
brave,  and  Hector  is  brave,  so  are  Ajax,  Menelaus, 
and  Diomede  ;  but  the  bravery  of  Hector  is  not  of 
the  same  kind  with  that  of  Ajax,  and  no  one  will 
mistake  the  battle -shout  of  the  son  of  Atreus  for  the 
war-cry  of  Tydides. 

Homer's  machinery,  as  all  epic  machinery  must 
be,  was  founded  on  the  popular  belief  in  the  visible 
appearance  of  the  gods ;  and  on  account  of  this 
belief  he  was  not  less  favored  by  the  circumstances 
under  which  he  introduced  them,  than  he  was  by 
those  which  enabled  him  to  represent  his  heroes. 
It  cast  around  his  whole  subject  a  sublimity  which  it 
could  not  otherwise  have  had,  giving  occasion  to 
noble  description,  and  tending  to  excite  that  admira- 
tion which  is  the  leading  aim  of  the  epic. 

We  have  made  this  analysis  of  the  Iliad,  to  show 
in  what  way  all  things  combined  in  Homer's  age  to 
assist  him  in  giving  a  perfect  outward  manifestation 


8  EPIC    POETRY. 

of  the  heroic  character  of  his  times.  He  wrote  in 
that  stage  of  society  when  man's  physical  existence 
assumed  an  importance  in  the  mind,  like  that  of  our 
immortality,  and  gave  to  all  without  a  power  and 
dignity  not  their  own.  This  it  was  which  imparted 
an  heroic  greatness  to  war  which  cannot  now  be 
seen  in  it.  That  far-reaching  idea  of  time,  which 
seems  to  expand  our  thoughts  with  limitless  existence, 
gives  to  our  mental  struggles  a  greatness  they  could 
not  have  before  had.  We  each  of  us  feel  within 
our  own  bosoms  a  great,  an  immortal  foe,  which,  if 
we  have  subdued,  we  may  meet  with  calmness  every 
other,  knowing  that  earth  contains  no  greater ;  but 
which,  if  we  have  not,  it  will  continually  appear  in 
those  petty  contests  with  others  by  which  we  do  but 
show  our  own  cowardice.  The  Greeks,  on  the  con- 
trary, lived  only  for  their  country,  and  drew  every- 
thing within  the  sphere  of  their  national  views; 
their  highest  exemplification  of  morality  was  patriot- 
ism. Of  Homer's  heroes  it  may  with  peculiar  pro- 
priety be  said  that  they  were  but  children  of  a  larger 
growth,  and  they  could  have  no  conception  of  power 
that  was  not  perceived  in  its  visible  effects.  "The 
world,"  as  Milton  says  of  our  first  parents,  "  was  all 
before  them,"  and  not  within  them,  and  their  mission 
was  to  go  forth  and  make  a  material  impression  on 
the  material  world.  The  soul  of  Homer  was  the 
mirror  of  this  outward  world,  and  in  his  verse  wet 


EPIC    POETRY.  9 

have  it  shown  to  us  with  the  distinctness  and  reality 
of  the  painter's  page.  Lucan  calls  him  the  prince 
of  painters,  and  with  him  Cicero  agrees,  when  he 
says,  "  Qua?  species  ac  forma  pugnse,  qua?  acies, 
quod  remigium,  qui  motus  hominum,  qui  ferarum 
non  ita  expictus  est,  ut  quse  ipse  non  viderit,  nos  ut 
videremus  effecerit  ?  "  It  is  needless  perhaps  to  say 
that  this  state  of  the  mind  gives  both  a  reason  and 
excuse  for  those  many  epithets,  which  a  false  criti- 
cism and  a  false  delicacy  of  taste  is  so  fond  of 
censuring.  Such  critics  would  blame  the  poet  for 
praising  the  physical  strength  of  his  heroes,  in  short 
for  representing  his  gods  such  as  they  were  believed 
to  be,  and  painting  his  warriors  such  as  they  were. 
When  we  look  back  upon  the  pages  of  their  history, 
we  cannot  contemplate  the  greatness  there  exhibited, 
without  a  feeling  of  sorrow  that  they  had  not  lived 
under  influences  as  favorable  as  our  own,  without  a 
sense  of  unworthiness  at  not  having  exhibited  char- 
acters corresponding  with  the  high  privileges  we 
enjoy.  We  respect  that  grandeur  of  mind  in  the 
heroes  of  Homer  which  led  them  to  sacrifice  a  mere 
earthly  existence  for  the  praise  of  all  coming  ages. 
They  have  not  been  disappointed.  Worlds  to  them 
unknown  have  read  of  their  deeds,  and  generations 
yet  unborn  shall  honor  them.  They  live  on  a  page 
which  the  finger  of  time  strives  in  vain  to  efface, 
which  shall  ever  remain  an  eternal  monument  of 


10  EPIC    POETRY. 

disgrace  to  those  of  after  times,  who,  though  gifted 
with  higher  views  of  excellence,  have  yet  striven  to 
erect  a  character  on  deeds  like  theirs.  We  rever- 
ence not  in  Hector  and  Achilles  the  mere  display  of 
physical  power,  we  reverence  not  the  manners  of 
their  times  which  but  too  often  call  forth  our  horror 
and  disgust ;  but  we  do  reverence  and  honor  those 
motives  which  even  in  the  infancy  of  the  human 
mind  served  to  raise  it  above  the  dominion  of  sense, 
and  taught  it  to  grasp  at  a  life  beyond  the  narrow 
limits  of  its  earthly  vision. 

This  state  of  things  gave  to  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey 
that  intense  epic  interest,  which  we  fail  to  find  in 
later  heroic  poems.  As  the  mind  advances,  a 
stronger  sympathy  with  the  inner  man  of  the  heart 
is  more  and  more  felt,  and  becomes  more  and  more 
the  characteristic  of  literature.  In  the  expanded 
mind  and  cultivated  affections,  a  new  interest  is 
awakened,  dramatic  poetry  succeds  the  epic,  thus 
satisfying  the  want  produced  by  the  farther  devel- 
opment of  our  nature.  For  the  interest  of  the  epic 
consists  in  that  character  of  greatness  that  in  the 
infancy  of  the  mind  is  given  to  physical  action  and 
the  objects  associated  with  it ;  but  the  interest  of  the 
drama  consists  in  those  mental  struggles  which  pre- 
cede physical  action,  and  to  which  in  the  progress 
of  man  the  greatness  of  the  other  becomes  subor- 
dinate. For  as  the  mind  expands  and  the  moral 


EPIC    POETRY.  11 

power  is  developed,  the  mightiest  conflicts  are  born 
within,  —  outward  actions  lose  their  grandeur,  except 
to  the  eye,  for  the  soul  looks  upon  them  but  as 
results  of  former  battles  won  and  lost,  upon  whose 
decision,  and  upon  whose  alone,  its  destiny  hung. 
This  is  the  mystery  of  that  calm,  more  awful  than 
the  roar  of  battle,  which  rests  on  the  spirits  of  the 
mighty,  and  which  the  hand  of  the  Grecian  sculptor 
strove  to  fix  on  the  brow  of  his  god.  Though  Homer 
has  given  variety  to  his  poem  by  the  introduction  of 
dialogue,  and  thus  rendered  it,  in  one  sense,  often 
dramatic  ;  yet  we  find  it  is  the  mere  transferring  of 
the  narrative  from  his  own  lips  to  those  of  others. 
The  interest  is  still  without,  it  is  not  the  interest  of 
sentiment,  but  of  description.  This  character  of 
the  Greeks,  as  might  be  supposed,  is  shown  in  their 
language ;  and  illustrates  their  tendency  in  early 
times  to  look  upon  themselves  in  all  reflex  acts, 
whether  external  or  internal,  as  patients  rather 
than  agents ;  a  tendency  to  use  the  words  of  another, 
which  is  exemplified  in  every  page  of  the  Homeric 
poems,  and  which  belongs  more  or  less  to  every 
people  in  an  early  stage  of  civilization,  before  the 
nation  comes  of  age,  and  acquires  the  consciousness 
along  with  the  free  use  of  its  powers.  This  seems 
to  be  the  reason  why  so  many  of  the  verbs  em- 
ployed by  the  Greeks  to  denote  states  of  mind  or  of 
feeling,  have  a  passive  form,  such  as 


12  EPIC    POETRY. 

Ol'oficti,  Alafrdvouai,  2x£7tTOiuai,  'Enlcriapaij  Bov- 
l.ofjai,  &c.  "  Men's  minds,"  as  Shakspeare  has 
somewhere  said,  "  are  parcel  of  their  fortunes,"  and 
his  age  was  necessary  and  alone  suited  to  the  mind 
of  Homer.  Man  viewed  himself  with  reference  to 
the  world ;  not,  as  in  the  present  day,  the  world  in 
reference  to  himself;  and  it  was  this  state  of  the 
mind  which  then  made  the  taking  of  Troy  the  point 
of  epic  interest. 

We  have  thus  endeavored  to  show  that  the  mani- 
festation of  the  heroic  character  in  the  time  of 
.Homer  was  perfectly  exhibited  in  outward  visible 
action,  and  that  this  reflected  from  the  soul  of  the 
poet  addressed  to  a  seeing  and  listening,  rather  than 
a  reading  people,  was  the  poetry  of  fancy  rather 
than  sentiment.  Events,  characters,  superstitions, 
customs,  and  traditions,  all  combined  in  rendering 
the  Iliad  a  perfect  embodying  of  the  perfect  outward 
manifestation  of  the  heroic  character  of  that  period. 
The  poetry  of  the  senses,  the  reflection  merely  of 
nature  and  of  heroic  achievements,  is  not  suscepti- 
ble of  indefinite  progress  ;  it  must  evidently  be  most 
perfect  when  the  objects  of  visible  action  are  noblest, 
and  we  view  all  else  only  with  reference  to  those 
actions.  The  epic  poetry  of  the  Greeks  corresponds 
to  sculpture,  and  in  the  one,  as  in  the  other,  the 
outward  forms  of  life  and  action  live  and  will  ever 
live  unrivalled. 


EPIC    POETRY.  13 

It  is  not  our  purpose  to  show  the  adaptation 
of  the  rules  of  Aristotle  to  the  Iliad,  since  from  this 
those  rules  were  drawn,  —  we  would  only  say  that 
according  to  the  spirit  of  those  rules  every  true  epic 
must  be  formed.  They  are  not  the  arbitrary  decis- 
ions of  a  critic,  but  the  voice  of  nature  herself 
speaking  through  her  interpreter.  Aristotle  studied 
nature  in  Homer;  he  gave  no  arbitrary  rules,  he 
did  but  trace  the^  pleasing  effects  produced  on  the 
mind,  and  taught  upon  what  those  effects  depended. 
He  may  have  erred  in  drawing  his  rules  from  one 
development  of  the  heroic  character ;  but  this  was 
the  fault  of  his  times,  not  of  his  judgment.  He  did 
not  mean  that  succeeding  poets  should  bow  to  him, 
but  should  reverence  those  great  principles  to  which 
he  had  shown  that  nature  herself  had  conformed  in 
her  noblest  work.  The  true  poet  will  look  without 
for  no  rules  drawn  from  others ;  he  feels  within 
himself  the  living  standard  of  the  great  and  beau- 
tiful, and  bows  to  that  alone :  as  far  as  it  has  become 
changed  by  human  error  or  imperfection,  he  would 
gladly  restore  it  to  its  original  purity,  by  a  conform- 
ity to  those  universal  laws  of  sublimity  and  beauty, 
which  the  critic  has  shown  to  be  followed  by  nature 
herself. 

When  Aristotle  tells  us  that  the  action  of  an  epic 
should  be  one  and  entire,  and  that  it  should  be  a 
great  action,  he  tells  us  of  what  constitutes  its 


14  EPIC    POETRY, 

essence,  and  of  that  without  which  it  ceases  to  be 
such  a  poem.  It  must  be  one  and  entire  that  the 
interest  may  not  be  distracted,  and  that  the  mind 
may  feel  the  harmony  of  all  its  proportions.  It  is 
not  the  poet  of  fancy  who  can  bind  by  his  spell  the 
parts  of  such  a  fabric,  it  is  the  poet  who  has  felt 
more  strongly  than  any  other  the  great  moral  wants 
of  his  age,  that  can  give  to  such  a  work  its  unity  and 
power.  It  has  been  well  said  that  in  reading  the 
gay  creations  of  Ariosto,  —  of  his  faiiy  bowers  and 
castles  and  palaces,  —  we  are  for  a  moment  charmed 
and  wrapt  in  pleasant  reveries,  but  they  are  but 
dreams ;  the  impression  is  soon  shaken  off;  we  are 
conscious  of  no  master-feeling  round  which  they 
gather,  and  which  alone  could  render  his  poem  an 
epic,  the  noblest  of  harmonious  creations.  But  in 
reading  the  Iliad,  or  a  tragedy  like  Lear  or  Macbeth, 
or  in  looking  sometime  at  a  painting  on  which  the 
moral  sentiment  of  the  artist  is  as  strongly  impressed 
as  his  imagination,  instead  of  being  obliged  to  humor 
the  fancy  that  the  charm  may  be  kept  alive,  we 
shall  with  difficulty  shake  off  the  impression,  when 
it  is  necessary  to  return  to  the  real  business  of  life. 
It  is  in  the  greatness  of  the  epic  action  that  the 
poets  succeeding  Homer,  if  we  except  Milton  have 
failed ;  and  the  causes  which  have  operated  against 
them,  will  always  operate  with  increasing  force 
against  every  attempt  to  represent  the  present  or 


EPIC    POETRY.  15 

future  development  of  the  heroic  character  in  action. 
It  is  in  the  childhood  of  the  human  mind  alone,  that 
the  interval  between  thought  and  action  is  the  widest, 
and  therefore  it  is  then  alone  that  the  events  occu- 
pying that  interval  can  be  best  described.  The 
great  struggle  of  the  epic  poets  since  the  time  of 
Homer  has  been  against  this  narrowing  of  their 
field  of  action,  and  making  the  instruments  there 
employed  less  visible,  less  tangible.  The  wonder 
and  interest  of  the  world  is  now  transferred  to  the 
mind,  whose  thought  is  action,  and  whose  word  is 
power.  Lord  Kames  therefore  erred,  when  he  said 
"  that  it  was  the  familiarity  of  modern  manners 
that  unqualified  them  for  epic  poetry,  and  that  the 
dignity  of  present  manners  would  be  better  under- 
stood in  future  ages,  when  they  are  no  longer 
familiar."  The  fact  is,  our  manners,  or  the  manners 
and  actions  of  any  intellectual  nation,  can  never 
become  the  representatives  of  greatness,  —  they 
have  fallen  from  the  high  sphere  which  they  occu- 
pied in  a  less  advanced  stage  of  the  human  mind, 
never  to  regain  it.  This  will  account  for  the  appear- 
ance among  us  of  such  works  as  the  "  Sartor  Resar- 
tus,"  whose  object  is  to  impress  the  forms  of  physical 
life  with  a  greatness  no  longer  belonging  to  them, 
and  which  we  recognise  only  in  spiritual  action. 

These  remarks  will  show  why  it  was  that  Virgil 
failed  in  making  the  same  impression  on  his  age, 


16  EPIC    POETRY. 

that  was  made  by  his  great  model.  His  poem  is 
but  a  lunar  reflection  of  the  Iliad  ;  and  it  was  per- 
haps from  a  deep  consciousness  of  this,  that  he 
ordered  it  in  his  will  to  be  burned.  That  poem, 
which  was  the  natural  expression  of  the  early  fea- 
tures of  society,  could  only  be  faintly  copied  by  the 
mimic  hand  of  art.  Virgil's  subject  is  well  chosen, 
and  would  not  have  shone  with  reflected  light  had  it 
been  treated  of  in  the  early  days  of  Rome.  He 
summoned  again  from  their  long  sleep  the  heroes 
and  gods  of  Troy,  but  they  appeared  with  dim- 
med glory  amid  the  brightness  of  another  age.  He 
had,  as  we  have  before  observed,  chosen  the  right 
point  in  time  for  his  action,  a  time  of  tradition, 
affording  him  all  the  advantages  possessed  by  Ho- 
mer, but  not  to  transgress  the  laws  of  probabil- 
ity, he  could  not  give  his  hero  the  character  of 
another  age,  he  could  not  make  ^Eneas  the  Achilles 
of  the  Romans.  Virgil  as  well  as  Lucan  has  been 
blamed  by  the  critics ;  the  one,  for  not  giving  to 
his  hero  the  dignity  of  thought  becoming  the  heroic 
character  of  his  own  time ;  the  other,  for  not  placing 
his  action  beyond  the  strict  bounds  of  history.  In 
regard  to  each  we  think  the  critics  have  erred  ;  for 
neither  the  time  nor  the  characters  could  have  been 
changed  without  producing  a  strange  incongruity. 

Thus  the  epic  poets  of  Greece  and  Rome,  who 
succeeded  Homer,  must  have  labored  under  peculiar 


EPIC    POETRY.  17 

disadvantages  to  which  those  of  modern  times  are 
are  not  subjected.  If,  like  Virgil,  they  had  chosen 
the  same  time  for  their  action  with  Homer,  they 
could  not  transfer  to  it  the  heroic  spirit  of  their  own 
day,  at  least,  in  its  noblest  development,  —  they 
could  not  make  a  Cato  or  a  Brutus  cotemporary  with 
an  Achilles  or  an  Ajax;  —  they  must  evoke  the 
heroic  spirits  of  other  days,  spirits  reluctant  to  obey 
the  spells  employed  by  the  magicians  of  another 
age.  Virgil,  as  well  as  every  other  poet  whose 
action  lies  in  times  very  far  distant  from  his  own, 
has  not  the  greatest  difficulty  to  overcome,  in  exhib- 
iting characters  moved  by  those  same  affections  and 
sympathies  which  unite  the  ceaseless  generations  of 
men,  in  giving  to  the  slumbering  past  the  emotions 
of  the  present ;  but  in  adapting  to  the  story  of  a 
former  age,  and  perhaps  foreign  nation,  that  peculiar 
system  of  manners  which  constitutes  the  outward 
development  of  the  heroic  spirit,  and  of  which  no 
mind,  but  such  as  has  been  subjected  to  its  actual 
influence,  can  either  strongly  feel  or  vividly  describe. 
These  manners  perish  with  their  age,  —  there  is  no 
hand  of  enchantment  to  wave  over  them  and  convert 
them,  like  the  fabled  city  of  Arabian  romance,  into 
living  stone ;  no  convulsion  of  nature,  like  that 
which  covered  Pompeii,  to  wrap  them  in  a  veil 
which  future  ages  might  withdraw,  and  permit  them, 
>wtouched  by  the  hand  of  time,  to  stand  unimpaired 
2 


18  EPIC    POETRY, 

amid  the  ruins  of  the  past,  and  gaze  with  wonder  on 
the  new-risen  generations  of  men.  But  if,  like 
Lucan,  they  took  their  subject  from  the  hands  of 
History,  the  skepticism  of  a  more  advanced  age 
deprived  them  of  the  use  of  machinery,  and  conse- 
quently of  the  power  of  exciting  that  admiration, 
which  is  the  leading  aim  of  the  epic  poem.  We 
need  not  stop  to  show  how  ridiculous  Iris  would  have 
appeared  on  the  plains  of  Pharsalia  bringing  a  sword 
to  Pompey,  or  Venus  coming  to  snatch  him  away  in 
a  cloud.  It  is  evident  that  the  poet,  forced  to  follow 
in  the  same  path  with  the  historian,  must  feel  the 
bonds  of  reality  continually  restraining  and  checking 
his,  native  energies. 

These  difficulties  the  influence  of  Christianity 
overcame,  but  subjected  the  epic  poet  to  others  still 
more  discouraging,  as  I  shall  endeavor  to  show  by  a 
brief  reference  to  Tasso,  Dante,  and  Milton. 

The  subject  chosen  by  Tasso,  and  the  time  of  the 
action  of  his  poem,  bore  the  same  relation  to  Chris- 
tian civilization  as  Homer's  did  to  Grecian.  It  was 
the  only  age  in  which  the  heroic  Christian  character 
could  be  fully  manifested  in  outward  action.  This 
resulted  from  a  peculiar  state  of  the  mind  which,  as 
we  have  said  in  regard  to  heroic  manners,  perishes 
with  its  age,  with  the  circumstances  that  called  it 
forth.  It  was  a  new  development  of  the  Homeric 
spirit  modified  by  Christianity.  The  interest  as  in 


EPIC    POETRY.  19 

the  Iliad  and  ^Eneid  is  all  without,  and  this  it  is 
which  gives  to  the  poem  of  Tasso,  as  to  the  other 
two,  the  true  epic  interest,  and  adds  a  dignity  to  the 
manners    of  these   poems  belonging   to    no    other, 
where  the  subject  is  taken  from  the  common  events 
of  life.     The   subject,  too,  as  it  presented  a  scene 
for  the  display  of  action  resulting  from  a  purer  faith, 
possesses  a  dignity  far  surpassing  that  of  his  two 
great  predecessors.     Thus  fortunate   in  his  subject 
and  in  the  time  of  his  action,  he  was  equally  favored 
by  the  popular  belief  of  his  age.     By  the  supersti- 
tion of  his  own  time  he  was  enabled  to  oppose  with 
success  the  light  of  reality  which  was  thrown  around 
his  subject  by  history,  and  give  to  it  that  supernatu- 
ral interest,  which  is  found  so  capable  of  exciting 
admiration.     However,  in  our  cooler  moments,  we 
may  laugh  at  his  magicians  and  their  incantations, 
as  they  are  not  mere  embodied  abstractions,  like 
Voltaire's  agents,  but  founded  on  the  actual  belief 
of  his  day,  they  will  always  possess  a  reality  to  the 
mind ;  and,  when  in  reading  we  have  yielded  for  a 
time  to  our  feelings,  will  again  assert  their  power. 
We  have  placed  Tasso  before  Dante,  in  order  of 
time,  because  he  has  given  an  earlier  development 
of  the  heroic  character.     He  would,  doubtless,  have 
possessed  as  well  as  Virgil,  whom  he  has  so  closely 
followed,  greater  originality,  and  more  strongly  ex- 


20  EPIC    POETRY. 

hibited  that  development,  had  he  lived  nearer  the 
age  he  endeavored  to  portray. 

The  effect  of  Christianity  was  to  make  the  indi- 
vidual mind  the  great  object  of  regard,  the  centre  of 
eternal  interest,  and  transferring  the  scene  of  action 
from  the  outward  world  to  the  world  within,  to  give 
to  all  modern  literature  the  dramatic  tendency, — 
and  as  the  mind  of  Homer  led  him  to  sing  of  the 
physical  conflicts  of  his  heroes  with  visible  gods 
without ;  so  the  soul  of  the  modern  poet,  feeling 
itself  contending  with  motives  of  godlike  power 
within,  must  express  that  conflict  in  the  dramatic 
form,  in  the  poetry  of  sentiment.  Were  the  present 
a  fit  opportunity,  Shakspeare  might  afford  us  still 
farther  illustrations  of  this  truth,  and  especially  in 
the  character  of  Hamlet,  of  whom  a  critic  has  truly 
said,  "  we  love  him  not,  we  think  of  him  not,  be- 
cause he  is  witty,  because  he  was  melancholy, 
because  he  was  filial ;  but  we  love  him  because  he 
existed,  and  was  himself.  This  is  the  sum  total  of 
the  impression.  I  believe  that  of  every  other  char- 
acter, either  in  tragic  or  epic  poetry,  the  story 
makes  part  of  the  conception ;  but  of  Hamlet  the 
deep  and  permanent  interest  is  the  conception  of 
himself.  This  seems  to  belong  not  to  the  character 
being  more  perfectly  drawn,  but  to  there  being  a 
more  intense  conception  of  individual  human  life, 
than  perhaps  in  any  other  human  composition." 


EPIC    POETRY.  21 

The  Sartor  Resartus,  Lamartine's  Pilgrimage,  Words- 
worth's poem  on  the  Growth  of  an  Individual  Mind, 
all  obey  the  same  law,  —  which  is,  that  as  Chris- 
tianity influences  us,  we  shall  lay  open  to  the  world 
what  has  been  long  hidden,  what  has  before  been 
done  in  the  secret  corners  of  our  own  bosoms ;  the 
knowledge  of  which  can  alone  make  our  intercourse 
with  those  about  us  different  from  what  it  is  too  fast 
becoming,  an  intercourse  of  the  eye  and  the  ear  and 
the  hand  and  the  tongue.  This  may  serve  to  reveal 
to  us  more  clearly  the  principle  which  led  to  the 
selection  of  the  subjects  of  all  the  great  epic  poems 
of  modern  times ;  for  it  was  only  by  making  man 
the  subject,  around  which  might  be  gathered  the 
material  forms  of  grandeur  and  beauty,  that  an 
interest  could  be  imparted  to  the  epic  corresponding 
to  that  of  the  drama.  The  poem  of  Tasso  forms 
the  only  exception  to  this  remark,  and  this,  as  we 
have  shown,  does  but  confirm  our  observation ;  for 
it  represents  the  mind  essentially  pagan,  yet  moved 
by  Christianity,  and  finding,  like  the  Greek,  all  its 
motive  for  action  without.  Our  interest  in  the  poem 
is  consequently  much  less  than  in  those  which  ex- 
hibit the  later  developments  of  the  Christian  heroic 
character. 

By  removing  the  bounds  of  time,  Christianity  has, 
I  think,  rendered  every  finite  subject  unsuited  for  an 
epic  poem.  The  Christian  creed,  in  opening  the 


4%  EPIC    POETRY. 

vista  of  eternity  before  the  poet's  view,  and  leaving 
him  unrestrained  by  prescriptive  forms,  while  it 
freed  him  from  the  bonds  of  history,  by  giving  him 
a  place  beyond  its  limits  where  he  might  transfer 
the  heroic  spirit  of  his  age,  and  surround  his  heroes 
with  supernatural  agents,  capable  of  raising  for  his 
action  the  highest  admiration,  subjected  him  to  a  far 
greater  difficulty  than  any  yet  experienced  by  former 
poets ;  that  of  finding  a  subject,  an  action  to  fill 
those  boundless  realms  of  space,  and  call  forth  the 
energies  of  the  spirits  that  people  it.  In  considering 
the  efforts  which  Christian  poets  have  made  to  over- 
come this  difficulty,  and  bridge  the  space  between 
time  and  eternity,  we  shall  find  the  great  reason  for 
not  expecting  another  attempt,  so  successful  as  that 
made  by  Milton,  arising  from  circumstances  which 
have  rendered  the  difficulty  far  more  formidable 
since  his  time. 

If  we  consider  Tasso  as  having  chosen  a  subject 
exhibiting  the  first  development  of  the  Christian 
heroic  character,  the  poem  of  Dante  will  exhibit  to 
us  the  second.  Though  not  an  epic,  if  viewed  with 
reference  to  classical  models  whose  aim  and  spirit 
were  intrinsically  different  from  any  produced  since, 
it  will  serve  to  show  how  the  genius  of  Dante  over- 
came the  difficulty  we  have  mentioned.  His  poem 
is  unique,  but  produced  under  circumstances  which 
would  have  rendered  it,  if  the  obstacles  we  have 


EPIC    POETRY.  23 

alluded  to  had  not  opposed,  a  regular  epic  poem. 
It  had  its  origin,  like  other  sublime  works  of  genius, 
in  that  desire,  which  is  continually  felt  by  the  greatest 
minds,  of  giving  to  their  age  a  copy  of  their  own 
souls,  and  embodied  the  vague  but  universal  spirit 
of  the  times  when  it  was  written.  Its  foundations 
were  the  popular  creed  of  all  Christendom ;  its 
supports,  the  deep  reasonings  and  curious  subtilties 
of  countless  theologians ;  and  the  scenes  it  represents, 
such  as  had  long  formed  the  dreams  of  many  a 
monk  on  Vallombrosa,  and  perhaps  entered  into  the 
sermon  of  every  preacher  in  Europe. 

Thus,  although  the  -circumstances  which  gave 
birth  to  Dante's  poem,  were,  if  we  may  so  say,  epic, 
yet  the  form  which  that  poem  took,  shows  the 
hostility  which  the  Christian  influence  has  towards 
the  strictly  classical  model.  That  influence  had 
already  divested  of  its  greatness  every  subject  like 
that  of  Homer's  or  Virgil's,  and  turned  upon  himself, 
as  an  individual,  the  interest  which  man  in  their 
times  had  given  to  the  outward  world-  It  is  in 
Dante's  poem  that  w-e  find  man,  as  a  physical  being, 
first  made  the  great  point  of  epic  interest  He  is 
the  first  epic  poet  that  exhibits  the  tendency  we  have 
so  often  alluded  to.  Favored  beyond  succeeding 
poets  by  the  belief  of  his  age,  he  was  enabled  to 
gather  around  man  beings  which  his  ignorance  and 
fear  shrouded  in  a  sublimity  not  their  own.  That 


24  EPIC   POETRY. 

strange  world  of  beings,  which  the  spirit  creates  for 
itself,  has  fled  before  the  light  of  science  ;  their 
forms  no  longer  float  in  the  fairy  halls  of  earth,  nor 
throng  the  untravelled  regions  of  space.  Their 
foot-prints,  which  our  infant  eyes  saw  impressed  on 
this  strange  world  of  ours,  and  which  once  conjured 
up  so  many  and  wondrous  shapes  of  beauty  or 
terror,  tell  us  now  but  of  one  creative  spirit  in  whom 
we  recognise  our  Father. 

"  The  intelligible  forms  of  ancient  poets, 
The  fair  humanities  of  old  religion, 
The  power,  the  beauty,  and  the  majesty 
That  had  their  haunts  in  dale,  or  piny  mountain, 
Or  forest  by  slow  stream^  or  pebbly  spring, 
Or   chasms  or  watery  depthsr  —  all  these  have 

vanished ; 
They  live  no  longer  in  the  faith  of  reason." 

In  Dante's  time,  Hell,  Purgatory,  and  Heaven 
had  long  been  considered  as  the  separate  states  in 
which  vice  and  virtue  would  meet  their  fitting  re- 
ward. This  belief  had  been  taught  by  signs  and 
emblems;  and  those  of  his  day  had  been  made  to 
learn  rather  through  the  medium  of  their  senses, 
than  the  silent  arguments  of  conscience  "  accusing 
or  excusing  itself,"  what  were  the  rewards  and 
punishments  of  the  future  world.  This  material 


EPIC    POETRY.  25 

development  of  Christianity  it  was  Dante's  mission 
to  hold  up  to  his  age,  and  upon  that  age  it  must  have 
had  and  did  have  its  greatest  influence ;  for  it  was 
produced  by  the  power  of  materiality  which  is 
lessened  with  every  advance  of  the  Christian  char- 
acter. His  poem  plainly  shows  that  the  tendency 
which  Christianity  gave  to  poetry  was  not  to  the 
epic  but  to  the  dramatic  form,  and  if  it  freed  the 
heroic  poet  from  difficulties  to  which  he  was  before 
liable,  it  also  exposed  him  to  another,  which,  although 
evaded  by  Milton,  must  in  the  end  prove  fatal. 

The  next  and  highest  development  of  the  heroic 
character,  yet  shown  in  action,  was  that  exhibited  by 
the  sublime  genius  of  Milton.  The  mind  had  taken 
a  flight  above  the  materiality  of  Dante,  and  resting 
between  that  and  the  pure  spirituality  of  the  present 
day,  afforded  him  a  foundation  for  his  action.  He 
could  not  adopt  altogether  the  material  or  the  imma- 
terial system,  and  he  therefore  raised  his  structure 
on  the  then  debatable  ground.  The  greatest  objec- 
tion, which  our  minds  urge  against  his  agents,  is  the 
incongruity  between  their  spiritual  properties  and 
the  human  modes  of  existence,  he  was  obliged  to 
ascribe  to  them.  But  this  is  an  objection  of  our 
own  times,  of  men  requiring  a  more  spiritual  repre- 
sentation of  the  mind's  action,  which,  if  it  cannot 
be  given,  must  preclude  the  possibility  of  another 
great  epic.  In  fact,  Milton's  poem  but  confirms 


26  EPIC    POETRY. 

more  strongly  the  conclusion  we  drew  from  Dante's, 
that  dramatic  is  supplying  the  place  of  epic  interest. 
His  long  deliberation  in  the  choice  of  a  subject 
suited  to  his  conceptions,  shows  the  difficulty  then 
lying  in  the  way  of  an  epic ;  and  his  first  intention 
of  making  Paradise  Lost  a  tragedy,  shows  whence 
this  difficulty  originated.  The  tendency  of  the 
mind,  to  which  we  have  before  alluded,  and  which 
had  grown  yet  stronger  in  Milton's  time  than  be- 
fore, compelled  him  to  make  choice  of  the  Fall 
of  Man  as  his  subject ;  a  subject  exclusive  in  its 
nature,  being  the  only  one  which  to  our  minds  pos- 
sesses a  great  epic  interest.  The  interest  of  his 
poem  depends  upon  the  strong  feeling  we  have  of 
our  own  free  agency,  and  of  the  almost  infinite 
power  it  is  capable  of  exercising.  An  intense  feel- 
ing of  this  kind  seems  to  have  pervaded  Milton's 
whole  life,  and  by  this  he  was  probably  directed  in 
the  choice  of  his  theme.  We  find  in  his  "  Speech 
for  the  Liberty  of  unlicensed  Printing,"  written 
many  years  before  the  conception  of  his  poem,  a 
sentence  confirming  this  supposition.  "  Many,"  says 
he,  "  there  be  that  complain  of  Divine  Providence 
for  suffering  Adam  to  transgress.  Foolish  tongues  ! 
When  God  gave  him  reason,  he  gave  him  freedom 
to  choose ;  for  reason  is  but  choosing.  He  had  been 
else  a  mere  artificial  Adam,  such  an  Adam  as  he  is 
in  the  motions.  We  ourselves  esteem  not  of  that 


EPIC    POETRY.  27 

obedience  or  love  or  gift  which  is  of  force."  This 
feeling  becomes  stronger  the  more  the  mind  is  influ- 
enced by  Christianity,  and  this  it  is  which  has  trans- 
ferred the  interest  from  the  outward  manifestation  of 
the  passions  exhibited  in  the  Iliad,  to  those  inward 
struggles  made  by  a  power  greater  than  they  to 
control  them,  and  cause  them,  instead  of  bursting 
forth  like  lava-torrents  to  devour  and  blast  the  face 
of  nature,  to  flow  on  like  meadow-streams  of  life 
and  joy.  Why  then  it  may  be  asked  do  we  take  an 
interest  in  Homer's  heroes,  whom  the  gods  are  ready 
every  moment  to  shield  or  snatch  from  the  dubious 
fight  ?  Not,  I  answer,  because  we  consider  them 
mere  machines  acting  but  from  others'  impulses,  for 
then  we  could  take  no  interest  in  them ;  but  because 
when 

.        "  Arms  on  armor  clashing  bray 

Horrible  discord,  and  the  madding  wheels 

Of  brazen  chariots  rage," 

we  give  to  them  our  own  freedom ;  or  because  the 
gods  themselves,  whom  Homer  has  called  down  to 
swell  the  fight,  and  embodied  in  his  heroes ;  because 
these  create  the  interest  and  make  what  were  before 
mere  puppets  free  agents.  When,  in  our  cooler 
moments,  we  reflect  on  his  Jove-protected  warriors, 
his  invulnerable  Achilles,  —  they  dwindle  into  insig- 
nificance, and  we  are  ready  to  exclaim  in  the  quaint 


20  EPIC    POETRY. 

language  of  another,  "  Bully  Dawson  would  have 
fought  the  devil  with  such  advantages." 

This  sense  of  free  agency  is  what  constitutes 
Adam  the  hero  of  Paradise  Lost,  and  makes  him 
capable  of  sustaining  the  immense  weight  of  interest, 
which  in  this  poem  is  made  to  rest  upon  him.  But 
that  which  renders  Adam  the  hero  of  the  poem, 
makes  Satan  still  more  so ;  for  Milton  has  opened  to 
our  gaze,  within  his  breast  of  flame,  passions  of 
almost  infinite  growth,  burning  with  intensest  rage. 
There  is  seen  a  conflict  of  "  those  thoughts  that 
wander  through  eternity,"  at  the  sight  of  which  we 
lose  all  sense  of  the  material  terrors  of  that  fiery 
hell  around  him,  and  compared  with  which  the 
physical  conflict  of  the  archangels  is  a  mockery. 
It  is  not  so  much  that  battles  present  less  a  subject 
for  description  than  they  did  in  the  time  of  Homer, 
that  they  fail  to  awaken  those  feelings  of  admiration 
they  then  did,  but  because  we  have  become  sensible 
of  a  power  within  which  bids  the  tide  of  war  roll 
back  upon  its  fountains.  For  the  same  reason  it  is 
that  the  manners  of  civilized  nations  are  unsuited 
for  heroic  song.  They  are  no  longer  the  represen- 
tatives of  greatness  ;  for  the  heroism  of  Christianity 
is  not  seen  so  much  in  the  outward  act,  as  in  the 
struggle  of  the  will  to  control  the  springs  of  action. 
It  is  this  which  gives  to  tragedy  its  superiority  over 
the  epic  at  the  present  day ;  it  strikes  off  the  chains 


EPIC    POETRY.  29 

of  wonder  by  which  man  has  been  so  long  fettered 
to  the  objects  of  sense,  and,  instead  of  calling  upon 
him  to  admire  the  torrent-streams  of  war,  it  bids 
the  bosom  open  whence  they  rushed,  and  points  him 
downward  to  their  source,  the  ocean  might  of  the 
soul, 

"  Dark  —  heaving  —  boundless,  endless,  and   sub- 
lime— 

The  image  of  eternity  —  the  throne 
Of  the  Invisible." 

Thus  Milton's  poem  is  the  most  favorable  model 
we  can  have  of  a  Christian  epic.  The  subject  of  it 
afforded  him  the  only  field  of  great  epic  interest, 
where  the  greatest  power  could  be  shown  engaged 
in  bringing  about  the  greatest  results.  Adam  is  not 
so  much  the  Achilles  as  the  Troy  of  the  poem. 
And  there  is  no  better  proof  that  greatness  has  left 
the  material  throne,  which  she  has  so  long  held,  for 
a  spiritual  one,  than  that  Milton,  in  putting  in  motion 
that  vast  machinery  which  he  did  to  effect  his  pur- 
pose, seems  as  if  he  made,  like  Ptolemy,  the  sun 
and  all  the  innumerable  hosts  of  heaven  again  to 
revolve  about  this  little  spot  of  earth.  Though  he 
has  not  made  the  Fall  of  Man  a  tragedy  in  form, 
as  he  first  designed,  he  has  yet  made  it  tragic  in 
spirit ;  and  the  epic  form  it  has  taken  seems  but  the 


30  EPIC    POETRY. 

drapery  of  another  interest.     This  proves  that,  how- 
ever favored  by  his  subject,  the  epic  poet  of  our  day 
may  be,  he  must  by  the   laws  of  his  own  being 
possess  an  introspective   mind,  and   give  that  which 
Bacon  calls  an  inwardness  of  meaning  to  his  char- 
acters, which,  in  proportion  as  the  mind  advances, 
must  diminish  that  greatness  once   shown  in  visible 
action.     The   Christian  Knights  might  well  exclaim, 
when  they  first  saw  gunpowder  used  in  war,  as 
Plutarch  tells  us  the  king  of  Sparta  did,  when  he 
saw  a  machine   for  the  casting  of  stones  and  darts, 
that  it  was  "  the  grave   of  valor."     They  were  the 
graves  of  that  personal  valor  which  is  shown  in 
its  perfection  in  the  infancy  of  the  mind,  and  which 
is  imaged  in  the   pages  of  Homer.     In  modern  bat- 
tles,  the   individuality  of  early  times   is  lost  and 
merged  in  one  great  head,  with  reference  to  which 
we  view  all   results.     The    men  upon   whom   the 
superior  mind  acts  are  mere  mechanical  instruments 
of  its  power,  and  the   deeds  seen  by  the   outward 
eye  are  thus  dimmed  by  the  soul's  quicker  perception 
of   spiritual   action.     Thus   the    intellectual   power 
wielded  by  the  commander  seems  already  to  have 
decided  the  battle,  and  we  look  with  less  interest  upon 
his  army's  incursions  into  the  territory  of  an  enemy. 
As  Sallust  says  of  Jugurtha,  "  totum  regnum  animo 
jam  invaserat." 

To  complain  of  this  tendency  of  the  human  mind 


EPIC    POETRY.  31 

and  its  influence  on  literature,  to  sigh  that  we  cannot 
have  another  Homeric  poem,  is  like  weeping  for  the 
feeble  days  of  childhood,  and  shows  an  insensibility 
to  the  ever-increasing  beauty  and  grandeur  devel- 
oped by  the  spirit  in  its  endless  progress,  a  forget- 
fulness  of  those  powers  of  soul  which  result  from 
this  very  progress,  which  enable  it,  while  enjoying 
the  present,  to  add  to  that  joy  by  the  remembrance 
of  the  past,  and  to  grasp  at  a  higher  from  the  antici- 
pations of  the  future.  With  the  progress  of  the 
arts,  power  is  manifested  by  an  agency  almost  as 
invisible  as  itself;  it  almost  speaks  and  it  is  done,  it 
almost  commands  and  it  stands  fast.  Man  needs  no 
longer  a  vast  array  of  physical  means  to  effect  his 
loftiest  purpose ;  he  seizes  the  quill,  the  mere  toy  of 
a  child,  and  stamps  on  the  glowing  page  the  copy 
of  his  own  mind,  his  thoughts  pregnant  with  celestial 
fire,  and  sends  them  forth,  wherever  the  winds  of 
heaven  blow  or  its  light  penetrates,  the  winged  mes- 
sengers of  his  pleasure.  The  narrow  walls  of 
patriotism  are  broken  down,  and  he  is  a  brother  on 
wThom  the  same  sun  shines,  and  who  holds  the  same 
heritage,  the  earth.  He  is  learning  to  reverse  the 
order  in  which  the  ancients  looked  at  the  outward 
creation,  he  looks  at  the  world  with  reference  to 
himself,  and  not  at  himself  with  reference  to  the 
world.  How  different  the  view  which  Virgil  takes 


32  EPIC    POETRY, 

of  his  country  from  that  of  the  Christian  poet ;  yet 
•each  how  worthy  of  its  age  ! 

**  Sed  neque  Medorum  silvse,  ditissima  terra, 
Nee  pulcher  Ganges,  atque  auro  turbidus  Hermus, 
Laudibus  Italise  certent ;  non  Bactra,  neque  Indi, 
Totaque  thuriferis  Panchaia  pinguis  arenis. 
Haec  loca  non  tauri  spirantes  naribus  ignem 
Invertere,  satis  immanis  dentibus  hydri ; 
Nee  galeis  densisque  virum  seges  horruit  hastis : 
Sed  gravidse  fruges  et  Bacchi  Massicus  humor 
Implevere ;  tenent  oleae,  armentaque  Iceta, 
Hinc  bellator  equus  campo  sese  arduus  infert ; 
Hinc  albi,  Clitumne,  greges,  et  maxima  taurus 
Victima,  so3pe  tuo  perfusi  flumine  sacro, 
Romanes  ad  templa  deum  duxere  triumphos, 
Hie  ver  assiduum,  atque  alienis  mensibus  sestas ; 
Bis  gravidse  pecudes,  bis  pomis  utilis  arbor." 

"  O  my  mother  isle  ! 

Needs  must  thou  prove  a  name  most  dear  and  holy 
To  me,  a  son,  a  brother,  and  a  friend, 
A  husband,  and  a  father !  who  revere 
All  bonds  of  natural  love,  and  find  them  all 
Within  the  limits  of  thy  rocky  shores.     • 
O  native  Britain !    O  my  mother  isle  ! 
How  shouldst  thou  prove  aught  else  but  dear  and 
holy 


,    -  EPIC    POETRY.  33 

To  me,  who  from  thy  lakes,  and  mountain-hills, 
Thy  clouds,  thy  quiet  dales,  thy  rocks,  and  seas 
Have  drunk  in  all  my  intellectual  life, 
All  sweet  sensations,  all  ennobling  thoughts, 
All  adoration  of  the  God  in  nature, 
All  lovely  and  all  honorable  things, 
Whatever  makes  this  mortal  spirit  feel 
The  joy  and  greatness  of  its  future  being  ?" 

We  cannot  sympathize  with  that  spirit  of  criticism, 
which  censures  modern  poetry  for  being  the  por- 
traiture of  individual  characteristics  and  passions, 
and  not  the  reflection  of  the  general  features  of 
society  and  the  outward  man.  If  we  want  such 
poetry  as  Homer's,  we  must  not  only  evoke  him 
from  the  shades,  but  also  his  times.  Purely  object- 
ive poetry  is  the  most  perfect,  and  possesses  the 
most  interest,  only  in  the  childhood  of  the  human 
mind.  In  the  poetry  of  the  Hindoos,  of  the  Israelites, 
as  well  as  of  the  Greeks,  the  epic  is  the  prevailing 
element.  But  that  page  of  the  heroic  character  is 
turned  forever ;  —  another  element  is  developing  itself 
in  the  soul,  and  breathing  into  the  materiality  of  the 
past  a  spiritual  life  and  beauty.  It  is  in  vain  we 
echo  the  words  of  other  days,  and  call  it  poetry ;  it 
is  in  vain  we  collect  the  scattered  dust  of  the  past, 
and  attempt  to  give  it  form  and  life  by  that  same 
principle  which  once  animated  it.  We  can  only 
3 


34  EPIC    POETRY. 

give  a  brighter  and  more  joyous  existence  to  the 
cold  forms  of  departed  days,  by  bowing  down,  like 
the  prophet  of  old,  and  breathing  into  them  a  purer 
and  more  ennobling  faith,  the  brighter  flame  of  our 
own  bosoms.  To  stir  the  secret  depths  of  our 
hearts,  writers  must  have  penetrated  deeply  into 
their  own.  Homer  found  conflicts  without,  to  de- 
scribe ;  shall  the  poets  of  our  day  be  blamed  because 
they  would  exhibit  to  us  those  they  feel  within  ? 
Milton  gives  us  the  philosophy  of  Christian  epic 
poets,  when  he  says,  "  that  he  who  would  not  be 
frustrate  of  his  hope  to  write  well  hereafter  in  lauda- 
ble things,  ought  himself  to  be  a  true  poem ;  that  is, 
a  composition  and  pattern  of  the  best  and  honorablest 
things ;  not  presuming  to  sing  of  high  praises  of 
heroic  men  or  famous  cities,  unless  he  have  in  him- 
self the  experience  and  practice  of  all  that  which  is 
praiseworthy."  What,  indeed,  are  the  writings  of 
the  great  poets  of  our  own  times  but  epics ;  the 
description  of  those  internal  conflicts,  the  interest  in 
which  has  so  far  superseded  those  of  the  outward 
world  ?  A  sufficient  answer  to  the  charge  of  ego- 
tism and  selfishness,  to  which  they  are  exposed,  is 
given  in  the  words  of  Coleridge.  "  In  the  Paradise 
Lost,  indeed  in  every  one  of  his  poems,  it  is  Milton 
himself  whom  you  see ;  his  Satan,  his  Adam,  his 
Raphael,  almost  his  Eve,  are  all  John  Milton ;  and 
.it  is  a  sense  of  this  intense  egotism  that  gives  me 


EPIC    POETRY.  35 

the  greatest  pleasure  in  reading  Milton's  works. 
The  egotism  of  such  a  man  is  a  revelation  of  spirit." 
Lamartine,  when  he  complains  so  often  at  not  being 
able  to  give  to  the  world  an  epic  embodying  the 
present  development  of  the  heroic  character,  seems 
not  to  have  dreamed  that,  unless  he  could  represent 
objectively  the  action  of  one  mind  on  another,  he 
was,  by  the  expression  of  his  feelings,  giving  us  the 
only  epic  poem  the  mind  in  its  present  stage  is  capa- 
ble of  giving. 

The  truth  of  the  principles,  we  have  laid  down, 
may  be  still  farther  tested  by  their  application  to 
the  projected  epic  of  Coleridge  on  the  destruction 
of  Jerusalem,  of  which  he  said  that  it  "  was  the 
only  subject  now  remaining  for  an  epic  poem,  a 
subject  which,  like  Milton's  Fall  of  Man,,  should 
interest  all  Christendom,  as  the  Homeric  war  of 
Troy  interested  all  Greece."  He  farther  observes, 
that  "  the  subject  with  all  its  great  capabilities  has 
this  one  grand  defect,  that  whereas  a  poem  to  be 
epic  must  have  a  personal  interest  in  the  destruction 
of  Jerusalem,  no  genius  or  skill  could  possibly  pre- 
serve the  interest  for  the  hero  from  being  merged  in 
the  interest  for  the  event."  We  will  not  touch  upon 
other  objections  which  he  himself  has  urged,  such 
as  mythology  and  manners,  to  which  what  we  have 
already  said  on  other  poems,  will  as  well  apply; 
but  will  only  remark,  that  the  subject  itself  is  incapa- 


36  EPIC    POETRY. 

ble  of  exhibiting  the  present  development  of  the 
heroic  character,  and  cannot  therefore  be  made  the 
great  epic  of  this  age,  or  of  any  to  come.  This 
may  be  seen  from  what  has  already  been  said.  What 
made  Milton's  subject  great,  and  what  can  now 
alone  make  any  subject  for  epic  interest  great,  was 
the  action  made  visible  of  a  superior  intellect  on  an 
inferior.  Could  intellectual  power  be  represented 
with  the  same  objectiveness  as  physical  power,  there 
might  be  as  many  epics  now  as  there  are  great 
minds.  The  reason  is  obvious.  It  is  this  manner 
of  representing  power  which  alone  possesses  a  cor- 
responding interest  with  tragedy,  by  which  alone 
there  can  be  a  hero  capable  of  sustaining  the  inter- 
est. The  poem  of  Coleridge,  even  if  feasible,  must 
have  been  more  similar  to  Tasso's  than  Milton's,  and 
consequently  when  compared  with  the  latter,  not 
great. 

Schiller's  plan  of  an  epic  poem,  founded  on  Fred- 
erick the  Great  of  Prussia  as  the  hero,  must,  if  the 
principles  advanced  are  correct,  have  proved  far 
more  futile  than  the  one  last  mentioned ;  and  it 
strongly  confirms,  as  we  think,  the  remarks  before 
made  on  the  hostility  of  the  dramatic  to  the  epic 
interest,  that  two  of  the  greatest  poets  of  our  age 
should  each  have  schemed  an  epic,  yet  neither  com- 
pleted one. 

Of  such  attempts  at  the  epic,  as  Monti's  in  Italian, 


EPIC    POETRY.  37 

and  Pollok's  in  our  own  language,  we  will  only  say, 
that  they  are  as  much  wanting  in  the  spirit  of  an 
epic  as  in  its  true  form,  and  that  they  are  as  remote 
from  the  merit  of  Dante,  whom  they  have  taken  as 
their  model,  as  near  him  in  plan.  Their  poems 
resemble  those  Spanish  epics  which  suddenly  ap- 
peared in  the  reign  of  Philip  the  Second,  the  whole 
series  of  which  were  nothing  but  chronicles,  and 
differed  but  little  from  histories.  Of  Wilkie,  and  a 
host  of  others,  we  might  say  as  Giraldi  Cinto  said 
of  Trissino,  who  employed  twenty  years  on  his 
"  Italia  Liberata,"  that  they  do  but  select  the  refuse 
from  the  gold  of  Homer,  imitate  his  vices,  „  and 
gather  together  all  that  which  good  judges  would 
wish  to  be  rid  of,  by  which  they  show  little  wisdom. 
We  have  thus  endeavored  to  show  the  inability  of 
the  human  mind,  at  the  present  day,  to  represent 
objectively  its  own  action  on  another  mind,  and  that 
the  power  to  do  this  could  alone  enable  the  poet  to 
embody  in  his  hero  the  present  development  of  the 
heroic  character,  and  give  to  his  poem  a  universal 
interest.  We  rejoice  at  this  inability  ;  it  is  the  high 
privilege  of  our  age,  the  greatest  proof  of  the  pro- 
gress of  the  soul,  and  of  its  approach  to  that  state 
of  being  where  its  thought  is  action,  its  word  power. 


SHAKSPEARE. 


IT  is  pleasing  to  frequent  the  places  from  which 
the  feet  of  those  whom  this  world  calls  great  have 
passed  away,  to  see  the  same  groves  and  streams 
that  they  saw,  to  hear  the  same  sabbath  bells,  to 
linger  beneath  the  roof  under  which  they  lived,  and 
be  shaded  by  the  same  tree  which  shaded  them.  It  is 
pleasant,  for  it  makes  us,  as  it  were,  companions  of 
their  earthly  presence  ;  —  the  same  heaven  is  above 
us,  and  the  same  earth  is  beneath  us,  and  we  feel 
ourselves  sharers,  for  a  time,  in  the  same  earthly 
heritage.  But  for  the  soul  this  is  not  enough.  We 
feel  unsatisfied  until  we  know  ourselves  akin  even 
with  that  greatness  which  made  the  spots  on  which 
it  rested  hallowed ;  and  until,  by  our  own  lives,  and 
by  converse  with  the  thoughts  they  have  bequeathed 
us,  we  feel  that  union  and  relationship  of  the  spirit 
which  we  seek.  We  may  frequent  the  same  shades, 


40  SHAKSPEARE. 

we  may  linger  beside  the  same  streams,  the  mind 
may  be  raised  and  improved  by  its  intercourse  with 
a  superior  mind,  but  we  can  never  be  at  rest,  at 
home  with  them,  we  can  never  really  see  the  same 
heaven  and  the  same  earth,  either  that  our  fellow 
men  or  that  the  Father  of  our  spirits  beholds,  until 
by  our  own  life  that  perfect  union  and  relationship 
has  been  consummated.  With  other  writers,  at  our 
very  first  acquaintance  with  their  thoughts,  we  recog- 
nise our  relationship  with  the  swiftness  of  intuition  ; 
but  who  of  us,  however  familiar  he  may  have  been 
with  his  writings,  has  yet  caught  a  glance  of  Shaks- 
peare's  self,  so  that  he  could  in  any  way  identify 
himself  with  him,  and  feel  himself  a  sharer  in  his 
joys  and  sorrows,  his  motives  and  his  life  ?  With 
views  narrowed  down  to  our  own  peculiar  and  selfish 
ends,  we  cannot  well  conceive,  for  we  feel  little 
within  us  that  answers  to  a  being  like  him  —  whose 
spirit  seemed  the  antagonist  of  matter ;  whose  life 
was  as  various  and  all-embracing  as  nature's ;  and 
in  whom  the  individual  seemed  lost  and  blended 
with  the  universal.  In  him  we  have  a  gift  not  of  a 
world  of  matter  but  one  of  mind  ;  —  a  spirit  to  whom 
time  and  place  seemed  not  to  adhere  ;  to  whom  all 
seasons  were  congenial ;  the  world  a  home  ;  who  was 
related  to  us  all  in  that  which  is  most  ourselves ;  and 
whose  life  and  character,  the  more  we  lay  aside 
what  in  us  is  provincial  and  selfish,  the  more  deeply 


SHAKSPEARE.  41 

shall  we  understand.  In  speaking  of  him  and  what 
he  did  as  an  exception  to  ordinary  rules,  we  only 
confess  our  ignorance  of  the  great  law  of  his  exist- 
ence. If  he  was  natural,  and  by  a  common  nature 
kindred  with  us,  as  we  all  confess,  that  ignorance, 
which  only  exists  by  our  own  sufferance,  will  clear 
up,  as  we  lay  aside  all  that  is  false  and  artificial  in 
our  characters,  and  Shakspeare  and  his  creations 
will  stand  before  us  in  the  clear  bright  sun-light  of 
our  own  consciousness. 

My  object  is  to  show,  by  an  analysis  of  the  char- 
acter of  Shakspeare,  that  a  desire  of  action  was  the 
ruling  impulse  of  his  mind ;  and  consequently  a  sense 
of  existence  its  permanent  state.  That  this  condi- 
tion was  natural ;  not  the  result  felt  from  a  submis- 
sion of  the  will  to  it,  but  bearing  the  will  along  with 
it ;  presenting  the  mind  as  phenomenal  and  uncon- 
scious, and  almost  as  much  a  passive  instrument  as 
the  material  world. 

I  shall  thus  be  led  to  find  excuse  for  much  that 
has  seemed  impure  in  his  writings,  and  to  change 
that  admiration  which  has  hitherto  regarded  him  as 
a  man,  into  one  which  would  look  upon  him  and  love 
him  as  the  unconscious  work  of  God. 

By  doing  this  I  shall  show  that  there  is  a  higher 
action  than  that  we  witness  in  him ;  where  the  will 
has  not  been  borne  down  and  drawn  along  by  the 
mind's  own  original  impulse ;  but,  though  capable 


42  SHAKSPEARE. 

of  resistance,  yields  flexibly  to  all  its  natural  move- 
ments, presenting  that  higher  phenomenon  which 
genius  and  revelation  were  meant  to  forward  in  all 
men,  —  conscious  nature. 

Our  view  is  not  concerned,  therefore,  with  those 
necessary  motives  which  doubtless  compelled  Shaks- 
peare,  like  all  of  us,  to  provide  a  daily  means  of 
support.  These  are  matters  of  external  history. 
They  are  Jndeed  prominent  objects,  often  changing 
and  giving  a  new  direction  to  the  current ;  but  they 
tell  us  not  why  it  flows  onward  and  will  ever  flow. 
It  is  not  to  the  softer  and  more  perishable  parts  of 
his  massy  mind,  I  would  direct  my  attention  ;  but  to 
those  veins  of  a  primitive  formation,  which,  now  that 
time  has  loosened  and  removed  all  else,  still  stand 
out  as  the  iron  frame  work  of  his  being.  We  look 
upon  such  minds  as  Shakspeare's  as  exceptions,  for 
wise  purposes,  to  our  common  nature ;  and  as  the 
single  man  who  is  born  blind  tells  thousands  that 
there  is  One  who  giveth  them  sight ;  so  those  of  our 
race,  who  by  nature  are  so  strongly  prompted  to  will 
and  to  do  that  their  minds  seem  almost  as  passive  as 
matter  beneath  superior  power,  have  been  denied 
the  liberty  of  will,  as  I  think,  that  the  many  might 
be  continually  reminded  that  their  minds  were  not 
their  own,  and  that  the  conscious  submission  of  their 
wills  to  the  same  great  influence  was  their  highest 
glory.  All  men  will  then  exhibit,  according  to  their 


SHAKSPEARE.  43 

gifts,  that  greatness  and  universality  as  conscious, 
which  we  now  witness  in  them  unconsciously  shown ; 
their  ruling  motive  will  be  a  yielding  to  the  hallowed 
impulses  to  action  ;  —  the  permanent  state  of  their 
souls,  eternal  life. 

There  is  a  desire  of  mental  activity  felt  by  such 
a  mind  as  Shakspeare's  corresponding  with  that  im- 
pulse to  physical  action  felt  by  all  men.  This  must 
be  a  natural  consequence  of  such  mental  endowment ; 
and  the  movements  of  the  mind,  in  men  like  these, 
must  as  regularly  take  the  lead  of  volition  as  the 
involuntary  motions  of  the  physical  frame.  Scott's 
confession  on  this  point  applies  equally  to  all.  "  Peo- 
ple may  say  this  and  that  of  the  pleasure  of  fame 
or  of  profit  as  a  motive  of  writing :  I  think  the  only 
pleasure  is  in  the  actual  exertion  and  research,  and 
I  would  no  more  write  upon  any  other  terms  than  I 
would  hunt  merely  to  dine  upon  hare-soup.  At  the 
same  time,  if  credit  and  profit  came  unlocked  for,  I 
would  no  more  quarrel  with  them  than  with  the 
soup."  The  main  action  of  all  such  minds  must 
evidently  be  as  independent  of  the  will  as  is  the  life 
in  a  plant  or  a  tree ;  and,  as  they  are  but  different 
results  of  the  same  great  vital  energy  in  nature,  we 
cannot  but  feel  that  the  works  of  genius  are  as  much 
a  growth  as  are  the  productions  of  the  material 
world.  Such  minds  act  as  if  all  else  but  the  sense 
of  their  existence  was  an  accident ;  and,  under  the 


44  SHAKSPEABE. 

influence  of  this  transforming  power,  all  is  plastic  ;  — 
marble  becomes  flexible  and  shapes  itself  into  life ; 
words  partake  as  it  were  of  motion,  form  and  speech ; 
and  matter,  like  the  atoms  on  the  magnetic  plate, 
feels  instinct  with  order  and  design.  The  stream  of 
life,  —  which,  in  other  men,  obstructed  and  at  last  sta- 
tionary as  the  objects  that  surround  it,  seems  scarcely 
to  deserve  the  name,  —  in  them  rolls  ever  onward  its 
rich  and  life-giving  waters  as  if  unconscious  of  the 
beautiful  banks  it  has  overflowed  with  fertility.  With 
most  men  it  requires  a  continual  effort  of  the  will 
to  prevent  the  objects  which  were  only  intended  to 
give  exercise  to  their  souls  from  detaining  them,  as 
it  were,  and  holding  them  in  a  torpid  inanimation. 
As  long  as  man  labors  for  a  physical  existence, 
though  an  act  of  necessity  almost,  he  is  yet  natural ; 
it  is  life,  though  that  of  this  world,  for  which  he 
instinctively  works.  But  when  he  has  reached  this 
point  where  the  means  of  physical  existence  are  se- 
cured, he  is  permitted  to  become  unnatural ;  he  is 
left  at  liberty  to  strive  for  that  eternal  life  which  is 
promised  him,  by  the  voluntary  surrender  and  sacri- 
fice of  the  objects  of  this ;  or  to  become  at  every 
moment  more  like  the  senseless  clods  around  him, 
and,  at  last,  when  he  has  gained  the  whole  world, 
instead  of  having  sacrificed  it  all  to  that  sense  of 
life  and  love  within  him,  he  has  lost  his  soul.  It 
seems  indeed  a  thing  impossible  to  us,  sunk  as  we  are 


SHAKSPEARE.  45 

in  sin  and  the  flesh,  that  this  vast  globe  and  millions 
of  others  should  roll  on  their  limitless  ways  with  the 
speed  of  thought,  moved  but.  by  a  will  kindred  with 
our  own.  But  would  we  take  our  just  position  in 
regard  to  the  objects  of  sense ;  and,  instead  of  find- 
ing ourselves  revolving  around  them,  did  they  seem 
like  harmonized  spheres  enlightened  and  moved  by 
the  strong  working  principles  of  duty  and  love  within 
us,  we  should  then  indeed  feel  of  a  truth  our  rela- 
tionship to  our  Father,  and  that  for  matter  to  obey 
His  will  was  but  its  natural  law.  Do  we  wonder 
then,  that,  as  this  momentary  petrifaction  of  the 
heart  goes  on,  we  are  every  day  more  and  more 
strangers  in  this  world  of  love,  holding  no  com- 
munion with  the  Universal  Parent,  and  hoarding  up 
instead  of  distributing  His  general  gifts  ?  As  we 
resist  this  process,  the  resulting  state  must  evidently 
be  one  with  which  we  may  interpret  the  mind  of 
Shakspeare,  —  a  sense  of  eternal  life,  an  activity 
communicated  to  all  else,  and  not  merely  one  com- 
municated to  us  from  without ;  we  are  no  longer  the 
servants  of  sin,  but  the  free  followers  of  Christ. 

As,  therefore,  the  activity  of  the  mind,  freed  by 
an  exertion  of  the  will,  must  ever  be  connected  with 
the  sense  of  eternal  life,  so  is  there  joined  with  the 
mind's  involuntary  freedom  a  sense  of  existence 
that  constitutes  its  innocent  happiness,  and  makes  it 
the  natural  teacher  to  us  of  the  wide  principle  which 


4b          .  SHAKSPEARE. 

is  its  mission.  In  Claudio's  reflections  on  death,  the 
poet  unconsciously  lays  bare  the  texture  of  his  own 
mind.  Claudio  regrets  not,  as  we  should  suppose  he 
would,  the  loss  of  his  sister,  or  the  good  things  of 
this  world,  nor  feels  a  doubt  of  another ;  but  all  his 
horrors  are  but  the  negations  of  these  two  great 
characteristics  of  Shakspeare's  own  mind,  —  the  bar- 
ring up  of  his  varied  activity,  and  the  losing  in  a 
kneaded  clod  of  the  sensible  warm  motion  of  life. 

"  Ay,  but  to  die,  and  go  we  know  not  where  ; 
To  lie  in  cold  obstruction,  and  to  rot ; 
This  sensible  warm  motion  to  become 
A  kneaded  clod  ;  and  the  delighted  spirit 
To  bathe  in  fiery  floods,  or  to  reside 
In  thrilling  regions  of  thick-ribbed  ice ; 
To  be  imprisoned  in  the  viewless  winds, 
And  blown  with  restless  violence  round  about 
The  pendent  world ;  or  to  be  worse  than  worst 
Of  those  that  lawless  and  uncertain  thoughts 
Imagine  howling!  —  'tis  too  horrible! 
The  weariest  and  most  loathed  worldly  life, 
That  age,  ache,  penury,  and  imprisonment 
Can  lay  on  nature,  is  a  paradise 
To  what  we  fear  of  death." 

And  again,  in  Clarence's  dream  of  death,  so  strongly 
is  the  resistance  of  the  soul  to  this  imprisoning  of  it 


SHAKSPEARE.  47 

expressed,  that  we   feel  a  sense  of  suffocation  in 

reading  it. 

"  Often  did  I  strive 

To  yield  the  ghost :  but  still  the  envious  flood 
Kept  in  my  soul,  and  would  not  let  it  forth 
To  seek  the  empty,  vast,  and  wand'ring  air ; 
But  smother'd  it  within  my  panting  bulk, 
Which  almost  burst  to  belch  it  in  the  sea." 

The  play  of  Hamlet  is  founded  on  these  two  char- 
acteristics, and  they  are  apparent  throughout ;  as  we 
shall  endeavor  to  show  by  a  separate  analysis  of  it. 
We  are  continually  hearing  the  poet  himself  speak- 
ing out  through  the  words  of  Hamlet.  As  we  be- 
come more  and  more  conscious  of  that  state  of  mind 
which  our  Savior  calls  eternal  life,  we  shall  the  bet- 
ter understand  the  natural  superiority  of  such  a  mind 
as  Shakspeare's  to  the  narrowing  influences  which 
we  have  to  resist,  but  which  his  involuntary  activity 
rendered  powerless.  That  a  sense  of  life  would  be 
the  accompaniment  of  this  activity  would  then  be 
apparent ;  for  how  could  that,  childlike  love  of  vari- 
ety and  joyous  sympathy  with  all  things  exist,  save 
from  that  simple  happiness  which  in  him  ever  flowed 
from  the  consciousness  of  being,  but  which,  alas,  by 
most  of  us  is  known  but  in  youth  ?  Between  the 
dignified  arid  trivial,  between  decay  and  bloom,  how 
else  could  he  have  felt  that  connecting  link,  of  which 


48  SHAKSPEARE. 

we  are  insensible,  enabling  him  to  present  them  all 
united  as  in  the  moving  panorama  that  encircles  us. 
This  life  of  his  in  all  objects  arid  scenes  was  the 
simple  result  of  the  movements  of  a  mind  which 
found  only  in  all  it  saw  around  it,  something  to  cor- 
respond with  its  own  condition.  Its  own  activity  was 
its  possession ;  circumstances  and  things  seemed  to 
be,  because  it  was  ;  these  were  accidents,  and  not,  as 
with  other  men,  realities.  His  power  while  exerted 
on  every  thing  seems  independent  of  its  objects. 
Like  the  ocean,  his  mind  could  fill  with  murmuring 
waves  the  strangely  indented  coast  of  human  exist- 
ence from  the  widest  bay  to  the  smallest  creek  ;  then 
ebbing,  retire  within  itself,  as  if  form  was  but  a  mode 
of  its  limitless  and  independent  being.  Did  love 
succeed  necessity,  we  should  need  no  other  explana- 
tion of  such  a  mind  than  our  own  would  give  us. 
We  all  feel  at  first  that  the  life  is  more  than  the 
meat,  but  from  the  corrupt  world  around  us  we  soon 
learn  to  prize  the  meat  more  than  our  spiritual  life. 
We  learn  indeed,  while  children,  the  fallacy  of  sac- 
rificing our  physical  existence  to  any  thing  inferior, 
and  to  look  upon  it  as  that  to  which  all  other  ends 
are  to  be  made  subservient ;  but  we  grow  up  and 
grow  old  without  ever  discerning  a  far  more  cunning 
fallacy  for  which  the  other  was  but  a  preparatory 
step,  and  we  live  on,  merging  the  thought  of  our 
being  in  its  daily  accidents,  and  immolating  the  life 


SHAKSPEARE.  4» 

of  the  spirit  before  the  idol  of  its  desires.  Instead 
of  this,  we  should  be  quickening  by  our  daily  life 
that  spiritual  consciousness  which  otherwise,  in  the 
hour  of  death,  we  shall  feel  that  we  have  lost;  when 
the  eye  that  saw,  and  the  ear  that  heard,  have  done 
their  tasks  ;  when  the  heavens  which  that  eye  has  so 
long  gazed  upon  are  rolling  together  as  a  scroll,  and 
the  thousand  tones  of  music  which  the  ear  has  drank 
from  the  earth  are  hushed,  and  the  affrighted  soul 
turns  inward  upon  itself  as  the  sole  remaining  mon- 
ument of  all  that  was  once  real.  Was  such  a  con- 
sciousness ours,  then  indeed  might  we  sympathize 
with  Shakspeare  ;  then  might  the  lofty  thought  which 
Milton  felt  in  his  blindness  and  age,  forever  permeate 
our  being,  and  lift  us  to  that  height  from  which,  like 
him,  we  could  look  down  on  the  world  and  the  ob- 
jects of  sense  beneath ;  and  as  we  gazed  with  the 
soul's  pure  eyes,  and  a  mind  irradiated  with  that 
celestial  light  for  which  he  prayed,  we  too  might 
exclaim 

"  For  who  would  lose, 
Though  full  of  pain,  this  intellectual  being, 
These  thoughts  that  wander  through  eternity, 
To  perish  rather  swallowed  up  and  lost 
In  the  wide  womb  of  uncreated  night, 
Devoid  of  sense  and  motion?" 

This  activity  of  mind  in  Shakspeare,  to,  which  the- 
4 


50  SHAKSPEARE. 

theatre  perhaps  in  some  measure  gave  a  direction, 
and  the  strong  sense  of  life  which  must  necessarily 
have  accompanied  it,  leads  us  to  the  negation  of  the 
two,  as  the  idea  on  which  his  mind  would  dwell  most 
frequently  and  with  the  most  concern.  We  find 
this  thought  therefore  standing  out  more  or  less 
prominently  throughout  all  his  plays,  and  forming, 
as  I  have  before  said,  the  ground-plan  of  Hamlet. 
I  cannot  help  quoting  in  this  connection  a  passage 
from  "  As  You  Like  It,"  which  only  Shakspeare 
could  have  written.  The  words  are  so  simple  that 
a  fool  might  have  uttered  them,  though  only  the 
wisest  of  men  knew  it.  Yet  none  could  impress 
upon  us  more  strongly  the  fact  that  we  live,  and 
that 

"  All  that  live  must  die 
Passing  through  nature  to  eternity." 
"A  fool,  a  fool!  —  1  met  a  fool  i'  the  forest, 
A  motley  fool ;  —  a  miserable  world !  — 
As  I  do  live  by  food,  I  met  a  fool ; 
Who  laid  him  down  and  bask'd  him  in  the  sun, 
And  railed  on  lady  Fortune  in  good  terms, 
In  good  set  terms, — and  yet  a  motley  fool. 
Good-morrow,  fool,  quoth  I :  No,  sir,  quoth  he, 
Call  me  not  fool,  till  heaven  hath,  sent  me  fortune : 
And  then  he  drew  a  dial  from  his  poke ; 
And  looking  on  it  with  lack-lustre  eye 
Says,  very  wisely,  It  is  ten  o'clock  : 


SHAKSPEARE.  51 

Thus  may  we  see,  quoth  he,  how  the  world  wags : 
'Tis  but  an  hour  ago,  since  it  was  nine  ; 
And  after  an  hour  more,  'twill  be  eleven ; 
And  so  from  hour  to  hour,  we  ripe  and  ripe, 
And  then,  from  hour  to  hour,  we  rot,  and  rot, 
And  thereby  hangs  a  tale." 

These  feelings  caused  Shakspeare  to  live  beyond  the 
influence  of  fame,  and,  though  disturbed,  as  we  have 
shown,  by  the  thought  of  where  or  how  he  might 
exist  in  another  world,  he  still  felt  the  fact ;  and 
fame  can  only  be  a  motive  to  those  who  have  no 
practical  belief  in  the  next  world,  or  to  whom  it  is 
an  uncertainty.  With  the  celebrated  minds  of  anti- 
quity, this  was  the  case ;  and  they  found  in  the 
thought  of  fame  some  consolation  for  that  activity 
and  sense  of  life  which  they  felt  to  be  their  great 
attributes,  as  if,  that  living  tongues  should  tell  of  their 
existence,  was  nearest  to  life  itself.  Think  not  that 
it  is  for  the  paltry  praise  of  others,  that  such  have 
lived  and  suffered ;  believe  it  not,  even  though  they 
themselves  knew  not  the  spirit  they  were  of,  and  in 
their  ignorance  believed  it ;  no — it  could  not  be  ;  — 
it  was  the  promptings  of  an  immortal  nature  that 
urged  them  to  live, — to  live,  though  it  were  to  be  but 
a  thought  in  the  memory  of  others.  In  this  yearning 
of  the  spirit  for  being,  for  immortality,  is  seen  a  sign 
of  its  relationship  to  God ;  that  it  is  in  very  deed  the 


52 


SHAKSPEARE. 


child  of  the  great  I  AM,  and  that  in  these  its  aspi- 
rations it  calls  Him  Father.  And  as  age  on  age 
rolls  by,  and  we  learn  more  humbly  to  bow  to  him 
who  came  to  bring  life  and  immortality  to  light,  we 
shall  feel  more  the  truth  of  that  sublime  revelation 
which  God  early  made  of  himself  to  his  children, 
when  he  said  to  Moses,  I  Am  that  I  Am. 

From  what  has  been  said  we  may  perceive  that 
universality  is  not  the  gift  of  Shakspeare  alone,  but 
natural  to  the  mind  of  man ;  and  that  whenever  we 
unburthen  ourselves  of  that  load  of  selfishness  under 
which  what  is  natural  in  us  lies  distorted,  it  will 
resume  as  its  own  estate  that  diversity  of  being  in 
which   he  delighted.     That  which  in  the  poet,  the 
philosopher,    or   the    warrior,    therefore  affects  us, 
is  this  higher  natural  action  of  the  mind,  which, 
though  exhibited  in  one,  is  felt  to  be  harmonious 
with  all ;  which  imparts  to  us,  as  it  were,  their  own 
universality,  and  makes  us  for  a  while  companions  of 
their  various  life.    In  the  individual  act  we  feel  more 
than  that  which  suffices  for  this  alone  ;  we  feel  sen- 
sible that  the  blood  that  is  filling  one  vein,  and  be- 
coming visible  to  us  in  one  form,  possesses  a  vitality 
of  which  every  limb  and  the  whole  body  are  alone 
the  fit  expression.     This  natural  action  of  the  mind 
is  ever  revealing  to  us  more  than  we  have  before 
known  in  whatever  direction  applied,  for  this  alone 
unconsciously  moves  in  its  appointed  path ;  the  only 


SHAKSPEARE. 


53 


human  actor  in  the  drama  of  existence,  save  him 
who  is  by  duty  becoming  consciously  natural,  that 
can  show  us  any  good.  In  its  equable  and  uninter- 
rupted movements,  it  harmonizes  ever  with  nature, 
giving  the  spiritual  interpretation  to  her  silent  and 
sublime  growth.  In  the  movements  of  Shakspeare's 
mind,  we  are  permitted  to  see  an  explanation  of  that 
strange  phenomenon  in  the  government  of  Him  who 
made  us,  by  which  that  which  is  most  universal  ap- 
pears to  be  coincident  with  that  which  is  most  par- 
ticular. In  him  we  see  how  it  is  that  the  mighty 
laws  which  bind  system  upon  system  should  be  the 
same  that  stoop  to  order  with  exactest  precision  the 
particles  whose  minuteness  escapes  our  vision  ;  that 
could  we  but  feel  aright,  we  should  see  that  the  same 
principle  which  teaches  us  to  love  ourselves,  could  not 
but  lead  us  to  love  our  neighbors  as  ourselves  ;  that 
did  we  love  in  ourselves  what  was  truly  worthy  of 
our  love,  there  would  be  no  object  throughout  the 
wide  circle  of  being,  whose  lot  and  happiness  would 
not  be  our  own.  It  is  thus  by  becoming  most  uni- 
versal, we  at  the  same  time  become  most  individual ; 
for  they  are  not  opposed  to  each  other,  but  different 
faces  of  the  same  thing.  But  selfishness  is  the 
farthest  removed  of  all  things  from  the  universality 
of  genius  or  of  goodness.  For  as  the  superiority  to 
the  objects  of  sense  which  the  soul  naturally  has, 
and  which,  when  lost,  love  would  restore,  diminishes ; 


54  SHAKSPEARE. 

these  senseless  objects  in  their  turn  become  masters ; 
we  are  the  servants  of  sin,  bowing  to  an  idol  that 
our  own  hands  have  set  up,  and  sweating  beneath 
the  burthens  of  a  despot  strong  in  our  own  trans- 
ferred power.  Like  the  ancients  we  too  find  a  deity 
in  each  of  the  objects  we  pursue  ; — we  follow  wealth 
till  we  worship  Mammon ;  love,  till  we  see  a  Venus ; 
are  ambitious,  till  our  hands  are  stained  with  the 
bloody  rites  of  Mars.  While  in  the  physical  world 
we  are  waging  by  our  rail-roads  and  engines  a  war 
of  utter  extermination  against  time  and  space,  we 
forget  that  it  is  these  very  things,  as  motives,  that 
urge  us  on.  We  are  exhibiting  the  folly  of  kingdoms 
divided  against  themselves ;  for,  while  in  the  physi- 
cal world  we  are  driving  to  annihilation  space  and 
time,  it  is  for  the  very  sake  of  the  things  of  time 
and  sense  that  we  do  it.  We  are  thereby  excluding 
ourselves  daily  from  those  many  mansions  which 
Christ  has  taught  are  prepared  for  us.  Our  words 
confess  that  all  things  are  God's,  while  our  hands  are 
busy  in  fencing  off  some  corner  of  the  wide  universe 
from  which  to  exclude  our  brother  man. 

In  the  exceptions  of  our  race,  in  those  we  have 
been  accustomed  to  call  great,  we  see  universality 
claimed  for  them  in  their  minds'  own  inborn  and 
free-working  energies.  But  others  are  more  free 
agents,  that  they  may  not  act  unconsciously ;  and 
that  a  conscious  natural  action  when  attained  may 


SHAKSPEARE.  55 

be  the  eternal  reward  of  their  well  doing.  The 
mind  which  of  its  own  inborn  force  is  natural,  is 
innocent ;  but  that  which  has  been  permitted  to  be- 
come so,  is  virtuous.  True  virtue  would  be  con- 
scious genius.  To  minds  in  both  of  these  states 
does  universality  belong ;  in  the  one,  it  is  that  of  the 
child ;  in  the  other,  that  of  manhood.  Both  are  in 
harmony  with  nature.  In  the  language  of  our  Lord, 
they  are  little  children  learning  to  repeat  the  words 
they  hear  the  Father  utter.  It  was  the  same  Father 
that  fashioned  him  who  wears  a  crown,  and  the 
shaggy  monarch  of  the  forest,  who  could  alone  give 
the  corresponding  state  in  the  mind  of  a  Shakspeare ; 
which  enabled  him  to  be  with  the  ease  and  natural- 
ness of  a  Proteus,  now  "  every  inch  a  king,"  and 
now  to  be  the  lion  too,  and  "  roar  so  as  to  do  any  man's 
heart  good  to  hear  him  ;  so  that  the  Duke  would  say 
'  let  him  roar  again,  let  him  roar  again.' "  As  the 
spontaneous  action  of  Shakspeare's  mind  was  con- 
tinually finding  an  answering  expression  in  the  world 
around  it,  so  must  the  same  action  in  us,  when  re- 
stored by  love,  find  the  same  ever-varied  forms.  We 
shall  become  all  things  to  all  men.  As  the  wind 
bloweth  where  it  listeth,  and  we  hear  the  sound 
thereof,  but  cannot  tell  whence  it  cometh  and  whither 
it  goeth,  so  passive  will  the  breath  of  life  that  God  first 
breathed  into  us  become  to  his  holy  will.  Life  will 
be  a  continued  worship,  for  every  object  will  be  a 


56  SHAKSPEARE. 

gift,  and  every  gift  an  opportunity  for  love.  When 
all  men  shall  so  live  and  speak,  their  souls  will  have 
consciously  become  the  passive  instruments  of  the 
Divine  will ;  and  will  ever  tell,  in  pure  and  spiritual 
worship  to  each  other,  the  works  and  ways  of  a 
common  Father.  The  highest  exercise  of  the  hu- 
man will,  will  be  formed  in  its  assent  to  the  Divine. 
Genius  will  be  the  obedience  of  the  child ;  virtue, 
the  obedience  of  the  man  to  the  same  Universal 
Parent.  The  unconscious  utterings  of  our  poet  will 
be  found  verified  in  himself. 

"  He  that  of  greatest  works  is  finisher  J 
Oft  does  them  by  the  weakest  minister : 
So  holy  writ  in  babes  hath  judgment  shown, 
When  judges  have  been  babes.    Great  floods  have 

flown 

From  simple  sources  ;  and  great  seas  have  dried 
Wlien  miracles  have  by  the  greatest  been  denied. 
But  most  it  is  presumption  in  us,  when 
The  help  of  heaven  we  count  the  acts  of  men." 

So  difficult  is  it  therefore  for  us  to  forget  ourselves, 
and  to  take  our  neighbor's  situation  with  the  same 
readiness  that  we  hold  our  own,  that  we  wonder  very 
much  at  what  we  call  Shakspeare's  universality,  his 
power  of  adapting  himself  to  his  characters ;  and 
that  we  see  nothing  of  himself  in  them.  The  diffi- 


SHAKSPEARE.  57 

culty  that  we  imagine,  and  the  want  of  perception 
of  the  poet  in  his  characters,  are  both  a  difficulty 
and  a  want  of  our  own  making.  Living,  as  we  do,  as 
if  we  were  made  for  the  objects  around  us,  and  not 
they  for  us,  we  are  incapacitated  for  understanding 
or  seeing  as  an  individual,  one  to  whom  no  such  in- 
dividuality as  we  are  conversant  with  belongs.  We 
are  looking  for  one  like  ourselves,  to  whom  we  may 
give  a  local  habitation  and  a  name ;  whom  we  may 
call  a  lover  of  wealth,  or  pleasure,  or  fame,  and  forget 
that  to  him  whom  we  seek,  places  and  names  were 
but  toys.  We  see  not  nor  understand  that  each  of 
the  characters  we  read  is  the  poet's,  and  that  while 
there,  he  neither  wishes  to  be,  nor  is  elsewhere.  We 
cannot  better  picture  to  our  minds  the  dramatic  state 
of  Shakspeare's,  than  by  recalling  to  our  thoughts 
the  days  of  our  childhood,  before  we  had  been 
schooled  by  the  selfishness  of  sin,  when  the  tides  of 
life  flowed  on  with  no  will  but  His  who  was  pouring 
them  through  our  souls.  Then  was  it,  as  has  been 
said,  that  man  "  filled  nature  with  his  overflowing 
currents."  Could  we  deny  the  false  pride  which 
springs  from  the  exercise  of  our  own  wills,  could 
we  submit  them  in  humbleness  to  Him  in  whom  we 
should  live  and  move  and  have  our  being,  we  should 
still  feel  in  manhood  and  age  that  our's  was  that 
universal  life  and  love,  the  emblem  of  which  our 
Saviour  beheld  in  a  little  child,  and  said  "  of  such  is 


58  SHAKSPEAEE. 

the  kingdom  of  heaven."  This  period  in  youth  we 
call  natural ;  all  that  the  child  does  bears  the  im- 
press of  universal  life ;  like  Adam,  he  is  uncon- 
sciously the  lord  of  creation ;  he  is  content  with  liv- 
ing ;  his  happiness  has  not  yet  become  the  selfish 
love  of  possession ;  his  actions  and  thoughts  are  full 
of  life  unclaimed  save  by  Him  who  gave  it.  Like 
the  Greek,  the  past  and  future  tenses  are  with  him 
present ;  he  is  what  he  describes,  and  his  gestures 
mark  actions  as  if  he  saw  them  and  was  pointing 
them  out  in  the  vacuity.  To  Shakspeare's  whole 
life  we  might  apply  the  same  language  that  we  do 
in  speaking  of  the  frolics  of  a  child,  —  how  full  he  is 
of  life  !  —  this  is  that  which  is  most  apparent  in  his 
every  character.  The  stronger  this  activity,  the  more 
happiness  is  there  in  the  mind's  own  exercise,  the 
more  is  it  independent  of  the  particular  object  on 
which  its  power  is  exerted,  and  the  more  coincident 
is  it  with  all  forms  of  being.  In  every  actor  in  the 
mighty  drama  of  human  existence,  did  Shakspeare 
find  himself;  he  wished  to  live  and  move,  and  this 
was  Shakspeare.  He  was  rich,  he  was  poor,  he 
was  wise,  he  was  foolish,  he  was  mad,  he  was  sober, 
"  desiring  this  man's  art  and  that  man's  scope,"  each 
and  all,  yet  neither.  He  lived  as  each  character, 
yet  was  not  that  which  at  any  one  time  appeared, 
since  that  which  is  individual  can  only  be  a  face  of 
the  universal.  In  each,  he  might  say,  with  lago,  "  I 


SHAKSPEARE.  59 

am  not  that  I  am."  I  cannot  farther  illustrate  this 
childlike  action  of  his  mind  better  than  by  applying 
to  him  what  Wordsworth  has  said  of  a  child. 

"  Behold  the  child  among  his  new-born  blisses, 
A  six  years'  Darling  of  a  pigmy  size  ! 
See,  where  'mid  work  of  his  own  hand  he  lies, 
Fretted  by  sallies  of  his  mother's  kisses, 
With  light  upon  him  from  his  father's  eyes, 
See  at  his  feet  some  little  plan  or  chart, 
Some  fragment  from  his  dream  of  human  life 
Shaped  by  himself  with  newly-learned  art ; 
A  wedding  or  a  festival, 
A  mourning  or  a  funeral ; 

And  this  hath  now  his  heart, 
And  unto  this  he  frames  his  song ; 

Then  will  he  fit  his  tongue 
To  dialogues  of  business,  love,  or  strife, 
But  it  will  not  be  long 
Ere  this  be  thrown  aside; 
And  with  new  joy  and  pride 
The  little  actor  cons  another  part, 
Filling  from  time  to  time  his  "  humorous  stage" 
With  all  the  Persons  down' to  palsied  age, 
That  Life  brings  with  her  in  her  equipage ; 
As  if  his  whole  vocation 
Were  endless  imitation." 


bU  SHAKSPEARE. 

In  this  activity  of  mind,  then,  in  this  childlike 
superiority  to  the  objects  by  which  it  was  attracted, 
we  find  Shakspeare.  This  was  his  genius,  for  genius 
is  nothing  but  this  natural  action  of  the  mind  ren- 
dering obedient  to  itself  by  a  higher  principle  those 
objects  to  whose  power  it  might  otherwise  have  been 
subjected.  This  it  was  that  enabled  him  like  a  boy 
"  to  toss  creation  like  a  bauble  from  hand  to  hand, 
embodying  in  turn  each  capricious  shade  of  thought." 
Thus  it  was,  that,  while  others  were  making  ends  of 
things,  he  gave  to  them  their  deeper  significance  of 
life  and  death,  of  time,  and  eternity.  In  this  view, 
the  acts  of  Shakspeare  seem  but  natural  movements. 
With  the  ever-surprised  mind  of  a  child,  he  was 
always  transformed  into  the  object  he  saw.  This 
condition  of  mind  might  perhaps  be  designated  as 
an  impersonal  one,  so  strongly  is  it  always  possessed 
by  that  which  is  before  it,  as  to  seem  for  the  time  to 
have  no  other  individuality.  It  is  the  unconscious 
possessor  of  all  things,  and,  like  the  mythological 
Greek,  gives  personality  and  voice  even  to  the  objects 
of  inanimate  creation.  This  is  that  primaeval  state 
of  innocence  from  which  we  have  fallen.  We  are 
no  longer  carried  out  of  ourselves  to  become  the 
expression  of  that  which  is  around  us  ;  but  enchained 
by  our  own  wills,  the  cloud  and  the  flower  speak 
only  through  our  dictation.  Would  we  attain  to  the 
recognition  of  the  individuality  of  a  Shakspeare  or 


SHAKSPEARE.  61 

a  Homer,  (for  they  had  an  individuality  and  one 
which  it  shames  us  not  to  perceive,)  it  can  only  be 
by  being  born  again,  by  becoming  again  through 
obedience  as  little  children,  and  by  feeling  more 
fully  than  we  have  yet  done  the  meaning  of  that 
sublime  declaration  of  our  Lord's,  "  all  that  the 
Father  hath  is  mine." 

As  we  arrive  in  our  own  consciousness  at  a  truer 
perception  of  what  Shakspeare  was,  we  shall  start 
with  strange  wonder  to  see  how  far  we  have  strayed 
from  the  paths  of  our  youth,  how  much  we  have 
substituted  calculation  for  right,  selfishness  for  love. 
We  shall  then  be  surprised  that  we  ever  sought  for 
him  apart  from  his  creations,  and  learn  that  the  per- 
fect poet  is  never  visible  save  in  action,  in  the  ever  new, 
ever  changing  aspect  of  nature  and  of  man.  Truth 
and  time  are  separate  rays  only  when  seen  through 
the  medium  of  an  imperfect  act ;  but  through  the 
perfect  and  entire  action  of  the  mind  they  are  seen 
blended  in  the  life  as  primary  colors  in  the  common 
light  of  day. 

This  view  of  Shakspeare  will  lead  us  to  look  upon 
his  characters  as  the  natural  expression  of  his  own, 
as  its  necessary  growths  or  offshoots.  We  shall  then 
see  a  reason  for  their  being  as  they  actually  appear 
to  be  facts,  real  events ;  which  you  could  no  more 
alter  or  improve,  than  you  can  the  branch  of  a  tree, 
or  the  visible  realities  themselves.  Such  being  the 


SHAKSPEARE. 


foundations  on  which  his  characters  rest,  we  may  see 
why  it  is  that  they  stand  in  the  front  of  mental 
achievements ;  and  that  we  speak  and  think  of  them 
as  those  with  whom  we  are  acquainted,  whom  we 
have  seen  and  addressed.  "  We  talk,"  says  Charles 
Lamb,  "  of  Shakspeare's  admirable  observation  of 
life,  when  we  should  feel  that  not  from  a  petty  inqui- 
sition into  those  cheap  and  every-day  characters 
which  surrounded  him  as  they  surround  us ;  but 
from  his  own  mind,  which  was,  to  borrow  a  phrase 
of  Ben  Jonson's,  the  very  "  sphere  of  humanity," 
he  fetched  those  images  of  virtue  and  of  knowledge, 
of  which  every  one  of  us  recognising  a  part,  think 
we  comprehend  in  our  natures  the  whole,  and  often- 
times mistake  the  powers  which  he  positively  creates 
in  us  for  nothing  more  than  indigenous  faculties  of 
our  own  minds,  which  only  wanted  the  application 
of  corresponding  virtues  in  him  to  return  a  full  and 
clear  echo  of  the  same."  We  may  study  a  char- 
acter, notice  its  incomings  and  its  outgoings,  and, 
having  become  perfectly  acquainted  with  the  whole 
whereabout  of  its  life,  may  place  it  in  a  given  situation, 
and  put  the  words  that  it  would  be  sure  to  utter  in 
its  mouth ;  and,  after  all,  it  would  be  no  more  like  the 
breathing  life  of  one  of  Shakspeare's  characters  than 
the  merest  wire-strung  automaton.  Such  a  form  has 
no  counterpart  in  creation ;  it  is  as  dead  as  the  soul 
that  made  it.  We  have,  it  may  be,  copied  with 


SHAKSPEARE.  63 

weary  finger  and  wisest  head  the  mere  letter  of  life, 
but  our  hearts  have  been  far  from  the  task ;  and 
the  mental  abortion  will  go  but  to  increase  the 
number  of  those  "  gorgons,  hydras  and  chimeras 
dire"  with  which  the  fruitful  loins  of  the  press  over- 
teem.  Each  of  the  characters  that  Shakspeare  has 
left  us,  on  the  contrary,  was  his  own ;  the  impulse 
by  which  he  moved  was  so  universal  that  it  rendered 
his  being  coincident  with  that  of  all.  He  actually 
lived  what  he  represented.  We  cannot  speak  of 
him  as  breaking  away  from  his  own  egotism  and 
throwing  himself  into  his  characters ;  he  had  no  ego- 
tism other  than  that  which  would  arise  from  that 
childlike  state  of  mind,  which  robes  itself  in  no 
particular  shape,  but  in  all  shapes.  For  him  every- 
thing lives  and  moves.  For  him,  as  for  those  of  our 
race  who  spoke  the  early  Shemitic  language,  there 
were  no  neuter  nouns. 

"  I  am  the  sea ;  hark,  how  her  sighs  do  blow ! 
She  is  the  weeping  welkin,  I  the  earth  : 
Then  must  my  sea  be  moved  with  her  sighs ; 
Then  must  my  earth  with  her  continual  tears 
Become  a  deluge,  overflowed  and  drowned." 

It  may  seem  strange  that  a  mind  capable  of  the 
conception,  as  we  call  it,  of  a  Hamlet  or  a  Lear 
should  yet  seem  to  delight  in  those  apparently  so 


64  SHAKSPEARE. 

opposite, — in  characters  of  a  low  or  even  licentious 
cast.     But  this  apparent  inconsistency  admits  of  an 
easy  explanation  from  the  very  nature  of  that  mind's 
action.     To  us  indeed  they  seem  antipodes  ;  but  to 
him  they  stood  embraced  by  the   same  horizon  of 
life  and  action.     If  we  will  but  think  of  his  mind  as 
moved  by  the  same  desire  of  action  as  our  own 
limbs  are  in  childhood,  and  with  as  little  end  in  view 
save  that  of  its  own  activity ;  we  shall  then:  easily 
conceive   why  he  should  seek  to  identify  himself 
with  every  mode  of  life,  and  be  and  act  characters 
of  the  most  apparently  opposite  nature.     That  such 
was  the  impulse  under  which  they  were  written,  we 
can  only  appeal  to  each  one's  consciousness  in  read- 
ing for  a  proof.     He   delighted   in  all   men  of  high 
as  well  as  low  estate,  —  we  had  almost  said,  in  the, 
licentious  as  in  the  virtuous.     But  how  different  is 
that  playful  and  childlike  spirit  with  which  he  acted 
a  vicious  character,  from  that  which  seems  to  have 
actuated  a  Byron.     The  one   represents  ^  an  aban- 
doned man  as  he  actually  exists,  with  the  joys  of 
sense  and  the  anguish  of  the  spirit  alternately  agitat- 
ing his   troubled  breast  5  and  the  contemplation  of 
such  a  character,  if  it  does  not  make  us  as  good  as 
it  might  have  done,  had  he  drawn  it  with  higher 
motives,  will  yet  make  us  better,  as  the  sight  of  it 
does  in  actual  life.     But  the  latter  was  not  innocent, 
he  imparted  something  of  himself  to  what  he  de- 


SHAKSPEARE.  65 

scribes ;  he  would  not  and  could  not,  like  Shakspeare, 
put  before  us  a  virtuous  man  with  the  same  pleasure 
as  he  does  a  vicious  one  ;  he  has  not,  like  him,  held  a 
pure  and  untarnished  mirror  up  to  nature,  but  reflected 
her  back  upon  us  from  his  own  discolored  and  pas- 
sion stained  bosom. 

Shakspeare  acted  like  his  own  Falstaff  "  on  in- 
stinct"; no  ligament  save  that  of  existence  bound 
him  to  any  particular  mode  of  action.  We  cannot 
therefore  learn  the  moral  influence  which  his  writings 
have  had  upon  society,  and  the  effect  of  this  or  that 
character  or  passage  from  what  seem  to  us  their 
consequences,  unless,  at  the  same  time,  we  are  con- 
scious of  the  state  of  mind  from  which  they  pro- 
ceeded. There  may  have  been  a  deeper  instinct  or 
principle  at  work  in  the  poet's  mind  by  which  those 
very  consequences  we  blame  were  fashioned  to  be 
the  instruments  of  good.  Of  this  we  can  learn  only 
by  our  lives.  The  rugged  summits  of  virtue  alone 
command  the  prospect  over  the  plains  of  innocence ; 
and  true  manhood  can  alone  interpret  the  sports  of 
the  child.  It  is  from  this  central  position  only  that 
we  may  hope  to  trace  aright  the  orbit  of  his  influ- 
ence and  the  moral  tendency  of  his  writings.  He 
lived  in  thought  as  we  live  in  sense  ;  what  the  invol- 
untary movements  of  our  bodies  are  to  us,  the  action 
of  his  mind  was  to  him ;  and  as  it  darted  "  from 

heaven  to  earth,  from  earth  to  heaven,"  the  wide 
5 


66  SHAKSPEARE. 

world  seemed  but  the  green  play-ground  of  his 
youth,  and  our  long  years  of  life  a  summer's  day. 
This  difference  is  well  shown  by  the  choruses  of 
acts  third  and  fifth  in  King  Henry  V. 

"  Thus,  with  imagined  wing,  our  swift  scene  flies, 
In  motion  of  no  less  celerity 
Than  that  of  thought.    Suppose  that  you  have  seen 
The  well-appointed  king  at  Hampton  pier 
Embark  his  royalty ;  and  his  brave  fleet 
With  silken  streamers  the  young  Phoebus  fanning, 
Play  with  your  fancies ;  and  in  them  behold, 
Upon  the  hempen  tackle,  ship-boys  climbing  : 
Hear  the  shrill  whistle,  which  doth  order  give 
To  sounds  confused  :  behold  the  threaden  sails, 
Borne  with  the  invisible  and  creeping  wind, 
Draw  the  huge  bottoms  through  the  furrowed  sea, 
Breasting  the  lofty  surge  :     O,  do  but  think, 
You  stand  upon  the  rivage,  and  behold 
A  city  on  the  inconstant  billows  dancing ; 
For  so  appears  this  fleet  majestical, 
Holding  due  course  to  Harfleur.    Follow,  follow  ! 
Grapple  your  minds  to  sternage  of  this  navy ; 
And  leave  your  England  as  dead  midnight  still, 
Guarded  with  grandsires,  babies  and  old  women, 
Either  past,  or  not  arrived  to,  pith  and  puissance : 
For  who  is  he,  whose  chin  is  but  enriched 
With  one  appearing  hair,  that  will  not  follow 


SHAKSPEARE.  67 

These    culled     and    choice-drawn   cavaliers    to 

France  ? 

Work,  work,  your  thoughts,  and  therein  see  a  siege  ! 
Behold  the  ordnance  on  their  carriages, 
With  fatal  mouths  gaping  on  girded  Harfleur. 
Suppose  the  ambassador  from  the  French  comes 

back; 

Tells  Harry — that  the  king  doth  offer  him 
Katharine  his  daughter ;  and  with  her,  to  dowry, 
Some  petty  and  unprofitable  dukedom  ; 
The  offer  likes  not :  and  the  nimble  gunner, 
With  linstock  now  the  devilish  cannon  touches, 
And  down  goes  all  before  him.     Still  be  kind, 
And  eke  out  our  performance  with  your  mind." 

Act  3d. 

His  mental  life  was  as  much  a  matter  of  impulse  as 
the  restless  activity  of  our  youth.  Other  poets  we 
blame  or  praise,  but  Shakspeare  only  elicits  our 
wonder.  He  spent  his  life  in  living  in  thought  the 
lives  of  others.  What  he  was  and  felt  he  said,  and 
it  was  nature  and  truth ;  for  acting  from  impulse  he 
did  not  strive  to  build  up  character,  according  to  his 
own  presumption,  and  preconceived  notions,  but  only 
described,  as  I  have  said,  what  he  himself  was  and 
felt  in  their  positions  as  he  severally  occupied  them. 
He  did  not,  like  Corneille,  hold  back  vice  that  she 
might  not  speak  her  part,  nor  did  he,  like  Byron,  re- 
strain virtue.  No  actor  in  life  is  driven  from  his 


58  SHAKSPEARE. 

stage,  and  the  consequence  is,  that,  although  he  acted 
neither  from  a  good  or  bad  motive  but  only  from 
instinct,  he  has  produced  for  us,  "  in  his  quick  forge 
and  working-house  of  thought,"  a  natural  mental 
growth  of  those  very  events  by  which  God  in  their 
ordinary  course  is  teaching  us ;  and  which,  by  the 
action  of  his  mind,  he  has  again  presented  us  for 
warning  and  pleasure  abridged  of  their  "  huge  and 
proper  life." 

The  true  influence  of  his  characters  as  individuals 
and  even  as  groups,  then,  is,  that  by  them  we  are 
continually  reminded  of  his  own,  of  what  we  may 
Call  the  impersonal  state  of  childhood,  a  state  which 
we  have  all  known,  yet  from  which  we  have  all 
fallen ;  that  condition  of  innocence  in  which  lived 
our  first  parents,  when  all  things  were  gifts,  and  they 
were  one  with  them ;  for  they  were  each  the  offer- 
ing of  Infinite  Love.  We  do  not  look  upon  Shak- 
speare  as  purposing  this  or  any  other  effect ;  but 
consider  it  as  the  unconscious  influence  of  one  ever 
active  in  the  mental  life  of  which  we  have  spoken, 
and  of  which  the  words  he  has  left  us  were  but  the 
natural  acompaniment.  We  can  impart  but  what 
we  are,  and  Shakspeare  formed  no  exception  to  that 
which  binds  all  other  men.  As  we  converse  with 
him,  at  every  turn,  in  each  of  the  varied  forms  under 
•which  he  presents  himself,  we  are  ever  wondering 
at  and  groping  after  that  strange  individuality  from 


SHAKSPEARE.  69 

which  they  all  proceed.  This  attained,  we  shall 
read  the  riddle  of  his  character,  and  stand  surprised 
within  ourselves  at  the  simplicity  of  the  solution. 

We  look  in  vain  therefore  in  Shakspeare  for  that 
consciousness  of  the  unconquerable  will  that  we  find 
in  Milton.  Shakspeare  could  never  have  given  us  a 
character  like  Satan's.  He  has  indeed  made  us  feel 
in  the  impulses  of  our  nature  a  depth  and  strength 
of  which  before  we  had  scarcely  any  conception. 
The  whispers  of  conscience  and  the  prompting  of 
natural  affection  seem  at  times  to  speak  with  almost 
supernatural  power ;  and  call  upon  the  selfish  and 
sin-stricken  soul  in  tones  that  bear  us  back,  as  it  were, 
to  that  mysterious  moment,  when  the  springs  of  our 
being  were  unsealed,  and  we  hear  again  the  streams 
of  its  murmuring  life  gushing  from  out  their  fountains. 
Thus  when  the  thought  that  so  her  father  looked, 
flashes  across  the  murderous  mind  of  Lady  Mac- 
beth, as  she  sees  the  gray  locks  and  venerable  face 
of  the  sleeping  Duncan ;  it  seems  as  if  we  saw  the 
dark  pall  of  clouds  that  have  gathered  with  more 
than  midnight  blackness,  over  her  devoted  head,  rent 
for  an  instant  asunder,  disclosing  to  her  guilty  soul, 
but  one  moment  and  the  last,  the  blue  bright  heaven  of 
her  childhood's  thoughts.  But  the  wickedness  of  such 
an  one  as  Lady  Macbeth,  and  even  lago,  we  can  pity 
and  pardon ;  for  we  feel  that  under  happier  influen- 
ces their  nature  would  have  been  changed ;  it  is  the 


70  SHAKSPEARE. 

first  sin  of  Adam,  and  not  the  full-grown  conscious 
guilt  of  his  tempter.  Shakspeare  represents  man 
as  he  is ;  too  weak  to  contend  by  his  own  unaided 
strength  against  the  destroyer  of  our  own  race,  una- 
ble of  himself  to  find  the  way,  the  truth,  and  the 
light,  yet  needing  their  continual  guidance.  In  Mac- 
beth, the  struggle  for  victory  is  still  kept  up,  the  fight 
is  far  from  being  ended,  and  the  night  is  still  on  the 
approach  ; — but  with  lago,  it  is  past ;  the  shadows  have 
long  since  fallen  over  the  field  of  his  defeat ;  as  we 
try  to  retrace  its  past  history,  all  is  indefinite,  and  the 
imagination  fills  its  unknown  extent  with  sights  more 
terrific  than  any  actual  conflict  could  have  presented ; 
every  object  swells  into  unreal  proportions,  and  at 
every  step  the  night  thickens  with  horrors  around  us. 
In  his  character  we  seem  to  see  the  conquest  of  sin 
complete,  and  the  bondage  of  the  spirit  consumma- 
ted ;  a  state  the  more  dreadful  to  our  view  since  the 
dark  field  of  conflict  is  hidden  by  the  past ;  and  we 
see  the  slave  of  sin  sunk  even  below  the  remem- 
brance of  his  freedom,  and  rejoicing  in  iniquity  as  if 
it  was  his  natural  heritage.  But  with  Satan  there  is 
no  joy  in  iniquity,  he  ever  feels 

"  How  awful  goodness  is,  and  sees 
Virtue  in  her  shape  how  lovely ;  sees  and  pines 
His  loss." 


SHAKSPEARE.  71 

Ever  in  his  bosom  gnaws  the  worm  that  dieth  not ; 
ever  burns  the  fire  that  is  not  quenched.  His  is  that 
sin  unto  death,  for  which  we  may  not  pray.  It  had 
been  in  vain  had  the  very  light  of  heaven  shone  around 
the  darkness  of  the  archangel ;  and  we  look  with  hate 
upon  his  gigantic  iniquity,  as  upon  a  daemon  more  than 
human ;  for  whom  there  remains  no  place  for  repent- 
ance, and  for  whom  is  reserved  the  blackness  of 
darkness  forever. 

Since  Shakspeare  accomplished  so  great  results 
without  any  apparent  object,  and  since  the  strains  of 
the  bard  are  ever  so  welcome  to  the  general  ear ;  it 
has  been  inferred  that  his  motive  was  to  please.  But 
that  poetry  gives  pleasure,  is  a  consequence  of  its  be- 
ing written,  not  the  motive  for  it.  We  degrade  those 
whom  the  world  has  pronounced  poets,  when  we  as- 
sume any  other  cause  of  their  song  than  the  divine 
and  original  action  of  the  soul  in  humble  obedience 
to  the  Holy  Spirit  upon  whom  they  call.  Wherever 
this  action  is,  it  is  its  own  cause  for  being  heard  ;  for 
it  is  the  word  of  God  uttered  through  the  soul  as  it 
ever  speaks  through  inanimate  creation.  Homer 
and  Shakspeare  were  without  a  struggle  the  natural 
representatives  of  this  action ;  and  they  were  a  uni- 
versal expression  through  which  all  things  might  ut- 
ter themselves.  They  were  the  innocent  and  uncon- 
scious children  of  duty,  and  in  the  ode  of  Words- 
worth, we  read  of  them  ; 


72  SHAKSPEAEE. 

"  There  are  who  ask  not  if  thine  eye 
Be  on  them ;  who,  in  love  and  truth 
Where  no  misgiving  is,  rely 
Upon  the  genial  sense  of  youth : 
Glad  Hearts !  without  reproach  or  blot ; 
Who  do  thy  work,  and  know  it  not : 
Long  may  the  kindly  impulse  last ! 
But  thou,  if  they  should  totter,  teach  them  to  stand 
fast !" 

Such  minds,  as  we  have  before  said,  seem  to  be  ex- 
ceptions, for  wise  purposes,  to  the  rest  of  our  race ; 
exhibiting  to  all  the  natural  features  of  the  soul  in 
the  unconscious  and  childlike  state  of  innocence. 
The  world  is  theirs,  but  it  is  so  only  because  they 
are  innocent ;  and  they  describe  it  as  if  it  had  never 
known  sin.  In  Wordsworth  and  Milton,  on  the  con- 
trary, we  see  the  struggle  of  the  child  to  become  the 
perfect  man  in  Christ  Jesus.  Their  constant  prayer 
is,  "  not  my  will,  Father,  but  thine  be  done."  They 
are  striving  for  that  silence  in  their  own  bosoms  that 
shall  make  the  voice  that  created  all  things  heard. 
It  is  the  self  which  opposes  this,  that  they  feel  with- 
in them  and  see  without  them  ;  and  it  is  this  alone, 
under  whatsoever  forms  it  may  be,  that  they  describe. 
They  use  not  others'  lips  and  words,  because  they 
are  their  own,  but  only  in  the  place  of  their  own ;  and 
the  language  which  their  characters  utter  is  not  the 


SHAKSPEARE.  73 

varying  personality  of  a  Shakspeare,  but  the  trans- 
fered  one  of  a  single-sided  individuality.  Like  the 
fallen  angel  they  cannot  escape  the  consciousness  of 
themselves,  and  the  brightness  of  poesy,  instead  of 
blazing  directly  down  upon  their  heads,  causes  them 
from  the  obliqueness  of  its  rays  to  be  ever  accompa- 
nied by  their  own  shadow.  But  when  the  war  of 
self  which  these  and  other  bards  have  so  nobly  main- 
tained shall  have  ceased,  and  the  will  of  the  Father 
shall  be  done  on  earth  as  it  is  in  heaven ;  when  man 
shall  have  come  to  love  his  neighbor  as  himself; 
then  shall  the  poet  again  find  himself  speaking  with 
many  tongues ;  and  the  expectant  nations  shall  listen 
surprised  to  a  note  more  sublime,  yet  accordant  with 
the  rolling  numbers  of  the  Chian  minstrel,  and  more 
sweet  than  the  wild  warblings  of  the  bard  of  Avon. 
To  the  soul  with  whom  striving  has  ceased,  shall  re- 
turn that  peace  which  makes  all  that  God  hath  to  be 
ours.  It  shall  speak  in  all  the  utterances  of  joy  and 
grief;  and  their  full  and  perfect  voice,  which  in- 
nocence has  failed  to  express,  shall  rise  from  the 
deep  bosom  of  its  spiritual  love.  Virtue  shall  find 
in  genius  her  erring,  though  innocent  child ;  and 
genius  shall  follow  in  love  her  maternal  guidance. 
The  few  that  have  appeared  first  shall  then  seem 
last ;  and  the  last  shall  be  seen  to  be  first.  Each 
soul  shall  show  in  its  varied  action  the  beauty  and 


74  SHAKSPEARE. 

grandeur  of  nature  ;  and  shall  live  forever  a  teacher 
of  the  words  it  hears  from  the  Father. 

Shakspeare's  life,  as  we  have  endeavored  to  show, 
was  coincident  with  that  of  others,  from  the  natural 
action  of  his  mind ;  and  from  its  unreserved  yield- 
ing to  events  it  has  exhibited  them  to  us  more  as  they 
are  than  any  other  mind  has  yet  done.  But  a  more 
perfect  coincidence,  which  shall  exhibit  more  of 
what  man  is  than  he  has  done,  can  only  be  brought 
about  by  feeling  more  deeply  that  all  things  are  ours, 
and  by  possessing  more  of  that  love  which  knew 
what  was  in  man.  Had  this,  and  a  sense  of  duty 
been  Shakspeare's,  they  would  have  rendered  more 
powerful  and  affecting  the  influence  of  his  charac- 
ters without  making  them  in  any  degree  less  natural. 
But  it  may  be  asked,  should  the  poet  be  more  moral 
than  Providence  ;  if  he  exhibit  things  as  they  are,  will 
they  not  have  all  the  influence  that  God  intended 
they  should  have  ?  It  is  that  the  poet  should  repre- 
sent things  as  they  are,  for  which  we  contend.  We 
are  not  pleading  for  those  sickly  beings  who,  by  the 
handy  work  of  the  mind,  are  made  to  fit  any  pre- 
scribed pattern  of  goodness ;  but  for  those  who  live 
and  move  about  us ;  to  describe  the  height  and  depth 
of  whose  thoughts  and  passions,  and  interpret  their 
meaning,  hidden  it  may  be  from  themselves,  even 
such  a  mind  as  Shakspeare's  must  have  entered  into 
and  portrayed  characters  not  only  from  impulse,  but 


SHAKSPEARE.  75 

also  with  a  love  whose  strength  was  that  of  duty. 
Too  easily  might  we  else,  as  he  has  sometimes  done, 
quicken  with  our  life  the  dry  bones  of  moral  death 
around  us.  It  is  no  common  lamp  that  will  enable 
us  to  thread  securely  the  dark  and  labyrinthine  cav- 
erns of  sin,  to  shed  that  light  even  amid  its  damp 
and  fatal  vapors  that  will  enable  us  to  draw  from 
their  lowest  depths  the  rich  treasures  of  wisdom 
which  they  hide.  No  one  can  enter  more  entirely 
into  the  lives  of  others  than  Shakspeare  has  done, 
until  he  has  laid  down  his  own  life,  and  gone  forth 
to  seek  and  to  save  that  which  is  lost.  Our  more 
perfect  views  were  not  intended  to  be  the  substitutes 
for,  but  the  interpreters  of  the  characters  of  others. 
What  ought  to  be,  if  we  describe  it  by  itself,  be- 
comes but  our  own  teaching;  what  is,  if  we  look 
upon  it  with  a  spirit  more  nearly  allied  to  His  who 
sees  all  things  as  they  are,  will  prove  the  lessons  not 
of  our  own  insignificance,  but  of  His  providence. 
We  need  not  substitute  our  ideals  of  virtue  and  vice 
for  the  living  forms  around  us ;  we  need  not  brighten  ' 
the  one,  nor  darken  the  other ;  to  the  spiritual  eye, 
even  here,  will  the  just  begin  to  appear  as  angels  of 
light ;  and  as  the  sun  of  Divine  Favor  sets  on  the 
wicked,  their  lengthening  shadows,  even  here;  are 
seen  to  blacken  and  dilate  into  more  gigantic  and  aw- 
ful proportions.  Shakspeare's  characters  are  true 
and  natural  indeed ;  but  they  are  not  the  truest  and 


76 


SHAKSPEARE. 


most  natural  which  the  world  will  yet  see.  From 
the  states  of  mind  of  a  Hamlet  and  Macbeth,  rise 
tones  of  which  the  words  he  has  made  them  utter, 
bear  but  faint  intelligence ;  and  which  will  find  a 
stronger  and  yet  stronger  utterance  as  the  will  of  the 
poet  conforms  to  that  of  his  Maker.  Shakspeare 
was  gifted  with  the  power  of  the  poet ;  a  power 
which,  though  he  may  have  employed  for  the  pur- 
poses intended,  does  not  seem  to  have  been  ac- 
companied by  that  sense  of  responsibility  which 
would  have  lent  them  their  full  and  perfect  effect.  His 
creations  are  natural,  but  they  are  unconsciously  so. 
He  could  but  give  to  them  his  own  life,  which  was 
one  of  impulse  and  not  of  principle.  Man's  brightest 
dignity  is  conscious  nature  ;  and  virtue  when  depriv- 
ed of  this  is  robbed  of  her  nobility ;  and  without  it  vice 
is  but  a  pardonable  weakness.  Shakspeare  is  not  to 
be  esteemed  so  much  a  man,  as  a  natural  phenom- 
enon. We  cannot  say  of  him  that  he  conformed  to 
God's  will ;  but  that  the  Divine  Will  in  its  ordinary  op- 
erations moved  his  mind  as  it  does  the  material  world. 
He  was  natural  from  an  unconscious  obedience  to  the 
will  of  God ;  we,  if  it  acts  not  so  strongly  upon  us 
but  has  left  us  the  greater  freedom,  must  become 
natural  by  a  conscious  obedience  to  it.  He  that  is 
least  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  is  greater  than  he. 

To  show  with  what  different  effect  his  mind  would 
have  acted  had  it  been  deeply  affected  by  the  truths 


SHAKSPEARE.  *77 

of  Christianity ;  and  the  consequent  imperfections 
which  his  creations  must  exhibit  to  a  mind  so  affect- 
ed, is  evidently  to  be  done  not  so  much  by  precept, 
as  by  example,  not  so  much  by  criticism  on  his,  as 
by  other  characters  of  one's  own.  That  to  a  mind 
of  his  power,  virtue  and  vice  would  have  had  a 
deeper,  and  in  no  wise  less  natural  signification  from 
the  superadded  light  of  Revelation,  no  one,  we  think, 
can  doubt.  Our  own  souls  must  be  rendered  a  fit 
medium  of  those  spiritual  conflicts  we  are  listening 
to  in  the  breasts  of  others ;  else,  some  of  the  sounds 
which  would  otherwise  come  clear  and  distinct  will 
fall  faint  and  unmeaning,  and  others  will  be  entirely 
lost  to  our  spiritual  ear.  Shakspeare's  mind  was,  as 
we  have  said,  a  pure  and  spotless  mirror  in  which 
to  reflect  nature  ;  but  it  was  the  purity  and  spotless- 
ness  of  innocence,  and  not  of  virtue.  Had  that  love 
of  action  which  was  so  peculiarly  the  motive  of 
Shakspeare's  mind  been  followed  also  as  a  duty,  it 
would  have  added  a  strength  to  his  characters  which 
we  do  not  feel  them  now  to  possess.  They  are,  it  is 
true,  natural,  but  they  are  no  more  than  nature.  How- 
ever amiable  our  feelings,  —  the  common  bonds  of  hu- 
manity,— they  are  weak  as  flaxen  cords  in  the  giant 
hands  of  our  selfishness,  unless  strengthened  by  duty. 
Even  a  mother,  whose  heart  is  knit  to  her  offspring  in 
what  would  seem  the  closest  of  all  natural  ties,  can, 


78  SHAKSPEARE. 

when  her  own  selfish  ends  have  made  conquest  of 
her  soul,  exclaim, 

"  I  have  given  suck ;  and  know 
How  tender  'tis,  to  love  the  babe  that  milks  me : 
L  would,  while  it  was  smiling  in  my  face, 
Have  plucked  my  nipple  from  his  boneless  gums, 
And  dashed  the  brains  out,  had  I  so  sworn  as  you 
Have  done  to  this," 

Such  and  so  weak  is  poor  human  nature.  Had  it  not 
been  so,  a  revelation  of  higher  motives  would  not 
have  been  needed  or  given.  Had  Shakspeare  felt 
these,  his  characters  would  have  been  more  con- 
sciously natural.  For  the  erring,  he  would  have  made 
us  feel  a  deeper  pity ;  for  the  wicked,  a  stronger  aver- 
sion ;  and  for  the  virtuous,  a  more  enduring  love.  He 
would  have  made  us  feel  that  sinning  as  we  do  in 
the  light  both  of  nature  and  revelation,  we  should 
still  continue  to  sin  even  amid  the  full  broad  blaze  of 
heaven. 

In  Shakspeare's  works,  I  see  but  the  ordinary  pow- 
er of  the  Deity  acting  in  mind,  as  I  see  it  around  me 
moulding  to  its  purpose  the  forms  of  matter.  But 
we  are  too  apt  to  admire  as  the  man  that  which  we 
should  only  regard  as  the  natural  operation  of  the 
Divine  Power.  Struck  with  wonder  by  this  natural 
action  of  the  mind,  we  are  too  prone  to  dignify  as 


SHAKSPEARE.  79 

that  image  of  the  Most  High  in  which  we  were  crea- 
ted, something  which  no  more  deserves  the  appella- 
tion of  man,  than  the  clod  on  which  we  tread.  To 
be  natural  either  consciously  or  unconsciously,  is  in- 
deed alone  to  be  truly  great ;  for  that  which  is  so  is 
God's.  The  material  world,  and  to  a  hardly  less 
extent  the  mental  one  of  those  we  call  great,  are 
passive  beneath  his  influence ;  they  are  naturally, 
but  unconsciously  so.  But  man  is  gifted  with  a  will 
whose  highest  exercise  could  he  but  recognise  the 
awfulness  of  the  trust,  he  would  feel  to  be  its  per- 
fect accordance  with  his  Maker's.  But  even  from 
the  first  moment  of  his  existence,  when  he  dared 
disobedience  to  his  conscience,  he  became  unnatural ; 
and  the  fair  Eden  in  which  he  was  placed  seemed 
no  longer  his  home ;  and  he  is  driven  a  wanderer 
through  his  own  Fatherland,  and  lets  himself  out  as 
a  hired  servant  to  till  those  very  fields  which  were 
once  his  own.  To  become  natural,  to  find  again  that 
Paradise  which  he  has  lost,  man  must  be  born  again, 
he  must  learn  that  the  true  exercise  of  his  own  will 
is  only  in  listening  to  that  voice  which  is  ever  walking 
in  the  garden,  but  of  which  he  is  afraid  and  hides 
himself.  In  the  words  of  him  who  came  not  to  do 
his  own  will,  as  we  humble  ourselves  and  become  as 
little  children,  our  minds  will  no  longer  be  at  vari- 
ance with  the  world  without  them ;  but  only  a  bright- 
er image  than  nature  can  be  of  the  creator  of  both ; 


00  SHAKSPEARE. 

the  true  soul  will  be  the  conscious  expression  of  na- 
ture. Shakspeare  was  natural ;  but,  if  we  may  judge 
from  his  writings  and  life,  he  must  have  been  as  un- 
consciously so  as  a  field  or  a  stream.  As  we  have 
said,  he  was  not  moved  by  common  motives ;  he 
wished  but  to  live,  and  he  passed  without  a  prefer- 
ence through  all  the  forms  of  living,  and  may  be 
said  to  have  been  most  truly  himself  in  being  others. 
Had  he  pursued  the  same  course  from  a  sense  of 
duty,  there  would  have  been  added  to  his  characters 
that  strength  of  will,  or  remorse  at  its  loss  in  which 
we  feel  them  especially  wanting.  That  he  acted 
from  impulse  and  not  from  principle,  shows  us  that 
he  is  not  to  be  regarded  as  a  man  so  much  as  a  phe- 
nomenon ;  that  the  tribute  he  would  ask  was  admiration 
rather  than  praise.  The  careless  manner  in  which  he 
left  his  works  has  been  wondered  at,  and  lauded 
long  enough,  we  hope,  for  Christian  men.  When  will 
we  learn  that  the  thing  we  call  a  man  wants  that 
which  alone  can  entitle  it  to  that  appellation,  when  he 
can  think  a  thought,  or  do  a  single  act,  much  less 
leave  the  works  of  a  whole  life  with  ostrich-like  in- 
difference on  the  barren  sands  of  a  world's  neglect, 
without  one  look  behind  at  their  influence  on  the  eter- 
nal happiness  or  misery  of  all  being.  'Twas  God's 
care  only  that  the  mind  he  sent  labored  not  in  vain. 
Action,  in  which  God's  will  is  not  the  motive,  is 
sending  the  lightning  flashes  of  heaven  to  play  for 


SHAKSPEARE.  81 

men's  amusement  among  the  far-off  clouds ;  and  not 
to  flash  in  warning  across  the  dark  path  of  destruc- 
tion in  which  they  are  treading.  It  is  the  successive 
peals  of  thunder  which,  instead  of  purifying  the 
moral  atmosphere,  are  made  to  roll  and  burst  only 
to  create  vainly  repeated  echoes  among  the  hills. 
Shakspeare,  though  at  times  he  may  have  been  pos- 
sessed of  this  genius,  must,  in  far  the  most  numerous 
of  his  days  and  years,  have  been  possessed  by  it. 
Lost  in  wonder  at  the  countless  beings  that  thronged 
uncalled  the  palace  of  his  soul,  and  dwelt  beneath 
its  "  majestical  roof  fretted  with  golden  fires ;"  he 
knew  not,  or  if  he  knew,  forgot  that  even  those  angel 
visitants  were  not  sent  for  him  merely  to  admire  and 
number  ;  but  that  knowing  no  will  but  His  who  made 
kings  his  subjects,  he  should  send  them  forth  on  their 
high  mission,  and  with  those  high  resolves  which  it 
was  left  for  him  to  communicate.  Had  he  done 
this,  we  might  indeed  reverence  him  as  the  image  of 
his  God ;  as  a  sharer  in  His  service,  whose  service 
is  perfect  freedom. 

From  God's  action  in  the  mind  of  such  men,  we 
may  learn,  though  with  less  clearness,  that  great 
lesson  of  Humility  which  He  has  revealed  through 
his  word.  From  genius,  as  well  as  revelation,  we 
learn  that  our  actions  can  alone  become  harmonious 
with  the  universality  and  naturalness  which  we  see 
in  the  outward  world,  when  they  are  made  to  accord 
6 


82  SHAKSPEARE. 

with  the  will  of  our  Father.  From  both  we  learn, 
that  of  ourselves  we  can  do  no  positive  act ;  but 
have  only  the  power  given  us  to  render  of  no  avail 
that  which  is  so  —  that  we  cannot  make  one  hair 
white  or  black ;  that  our  seeming  strength  is  weak- 
ness, nay,  worse  than  weakness,  unless  it  co-operates 
with  God's.  Let  us  labor  then,  knowing  that  the 
more  we  can  erase  from  the  tablets  of  our  hearts 
the  false  fashions  and  devices  which  our  own  per- 
verse wills  have  written  over  them,  the  more  will 
shine  forth,  with  all  their  original  brightness,  those 
ancient  primeval  characters,  traced  there  by  the  fin- 
ger of  God,  until  our  whole  being  is  full  of  light. 


HAMLET. 


THE  play  of  Hamlet,  when  viewed  with  reference 
to  the  character  of  Shakspeare,  which  we  have 
given,  will  no  longer  stand  in  that  unique  relation  to 
the  rest  of  his  performances  it  has  hitherto  held  ;  but 
will  be  found  to  be  more  vitally  connected,  than  any 
of  them,  with  the  great  characteristics  of  the  poet's 
mind.  We  have  chosen  this,  therefore,  because  it 
illustrates  our  previous  remarks ;  and  because  these, 
in  their  turn,  afford  the  position  from  which  it  is  to 
be  viewed.  As  to  the  time  of  its  composition,  it 
stands  at  about  an  equal  distance  between  his  first 
and  last  play  ;  and,  we  think,  we  can  see  the  influ- 
ence of  this  upon  those  that  succeed,  in  giving  them 
more  of  a  sobered  and  tragical  interest.  Those 
who  have  attempted  an  explanation  of  it,  have  failed 
from  the  want  of  a  just  conception  of  Hamlet's 
situation  and  character.  In  Lear,  and  in  many  other 


84  HAMLET. 

of  Shakspeare's  plays,  the  chief  character  seems 
naturally  to  be  that  for  which  all  the  others  were 
formed ;  and,  however  important  these  are  at  first, 
as  objects  for  the  eye  to  rest  on,  they  seem,  at  last, 
to  the  mind,  but  as  shadings  to  show  the  main  one  in 
the  strongest  light.  This  is  especially  the  case  with 
Hamlet ;  and  they  who  have  commented  on  it,  seem 
to  have  erred  from  viewing  that  as  of  the  greatest 
importance,  which  Shakspeare  must  have  considered 
but  as  accidental.  There  is,  to  use  his  own  words, 
"  something  more  than  natural"  in  this  tragedy,  "  if 
philosophy  could  find  it  out."  That  which  makes  it 
so,  is  the  playing  up,  in  a  peculiar  manner,  of  the 
great  features  of  Shakspeare's  own  mind  —  that  sense 
of  existence  which  must  have  been,  as  we  have  said, 
the  accompanying  state  of  so  much  and  so  varied  ac- 
tivity. Hence  the  darkness  which  has  so  long  hung 
over  it ;  a  darkness  which,  for  us,  can  only  be  dis- 
pelled, when  we  too  rest  on  the  same  simple  basis. 

Instead  of  feeling,  continually,  that  the  life  is 
more  than  the  food,  and  the  body  than  the  raiment ; 
we  live  as  if  it  were  directly  the  other  way,  and  by 
that  very  state  of  mind,  are  incapacitated  almost 
from  conceiving  of  one  who  stood  in  a  truer  relation 
to  things  ;  to  whose  thoughts,  time  and  space  seem 
not  to  adhere  as  to  ours  —  who  could  "put  a  girdle 
round  about  the  earth  in  forty  minutes,"  and  to  whom 
this,  our  life  of  years,  was  but  "  a  bank  and  shoal  of 


HAMLET.  85 

time."  From  the  soul  of  him  upon  whom  Christian- 
ity has  had  its  true  effect,  as  from  before  the  face  of 
him  whom  John  saw  in  vision,  sitting  upon  "  a  great 
white  throne,"  "  the  earth  and  the  heavens  have  fled 
away,  and  there  is  found  no  place  for  them."  Shaks- 
peare  was,  as  I  have  said,  the  childlike  embodyment 
of  this  sense  of  existence.  '  It  found  its  natural  ex- 
pression in  the  many  forms  of  his  characters ;  in 
the  circumstances  of  Hamlet,  its  peculiar  one.  As 
has  been  well  observed,  the  others  we  love  for  some- 
thing that  may  be  called  adventitious ;  but  we  love 
him  not,  we  think  not  of  him  because  he  was  witty, 
because  he  is  melancholy,  but  because  he  existed 
and  was  himself ;  this  is  the  sum  total  of  the  impres- 
sion. The  great  fore-plane  of  adversity  has  been 
driven  over  him,  and  his  soul  is  laid  bare  to  the  very 
foundation.  It  is  here  that  the  poet  is  enabled  to 
build  deep  down  on  the  clear  ground-work  of  being. 
It  is  because  the  interest  lies  here,  that  Shakspeare's 
own  individuality  becomes  more  than  usually  promi- 
nent. We  here  get  down  into  his  deep  mind,  and 
the  thoughts  that  interested  him,  interest  us.  Here 
is  where  our  Shakspeare  suffered,  and,  at  times,  a 
golden  vein  of  his  own  fortune  penetrates  to  the  sur- 
face of  Hamlet's  character,  and  enriches,  with  a  new 
value,  the  story  of  his  sorrows. 

If  Shakspeare's  master  passion  then  was,  as  we 
have  seen  it  to  be,  the  love  of  intellectual  activity 


86  HAMLET. 

for  its  own  sake,  his  continual  satisfaction  with  the 
simple  pleasure  of  existence  must  have  made  him 
more  than  commonly  liable  to  the  fear  of  death  ;  or, 
at  least,  made  that  change  the  great  point  of  interest 
in  his  hours  of  reflection.  Often  and  often  must  he 
have  thought,  that,  to  be  or  not  to  be  forever,  was  a 
question,  which  must  be  settled ;  as  it  is  the  founda- 
tion, and  the  only  foundation  upon  which  we  feel  that 
there  can  rest  one  thought,  one  feeling,  or  one  pur- 
pose worthy  of  a  human  soul.  Other  motives  had 
no  hold  upon  him ;  —  place,  riches,  favors,  the  prizes 
of  accident,  he  could  lose  and  still  exclaim,  "  For- 
tune and  I  are  friends,"  but  the  thought  of  death 
touched  him  in  his  veiy  centre.  However  strong 
the  sense  of  continued  life  such  a  mind  as  his  may 
have  had,  it  could  never  reach  that  assurance  of 
eternal  existence,  which  Christ  alone  can  give, — 
which  alone  robs  the  grave  of  victory,  and  takes 
from  death  its  sting.  Here  lie  the  materials  out  of 
which  this  remarkable  tragedy  was  built  up.  From 
the  wrestling  of  his  own  soul  with  the  great  enemy, 
comes  that  depth  and  mystery  which  startles  us  in 
Hamlet. 

It  is  to  this  condition  that  Hamlet  has  been  re- 
duced. This  is  the  low  portal  of  grief  to  which  we 
must  stoop,  before  we  can  enter  the  heaven-pointing 
pile  that  the  poet  has  raised  to  his  memory.  Stun- 
ned by  the  sudden  storm  of  woes,  he  doubts,  as  he 


HAMLET.  87 

looks  at  the  havoc  spread  around  him,  whether  he 
himself  is  left,  and  fears  lest  the  very  ground  on 
which  he  lies  prostrate,  may  not  prove  treacherous. 
Stripped  of  all  else,  he  is  sensible  on  this  point  alone. 
Here  is  the  life  from  which  all  else  grows.  Inter- 
ested in  the  glare  of  prosperity  around  him,  only  be- 
cause he  lives,  he  is  ever  turning  his  eyes  from  it  to 
the  desolation  in  which  he  himself  stands.  His 
glance  ever  descends  from  the  lofty  pinnacle  of  pride 
and  false  security  to  the  rotten  foundation,  —  and 
tears  follow  smiles.  He  raises  his  eye  to  heaven, 
and  "  this  brave  o'erhanging  firmament"  seems  to  him 
but  "  a  pestilential  congregation  of  vapors  ;"  it  de- 
scends to  earth,  and  "  its  goodly  frame  seems  a  sterile 
promontory."  He  fixes  it  on  man,  and  his  noble  apos- 
trophe—  "what  a  piece  of  work  is  a  man!  How 
noble  in  reason !  How  infinite  in  faculties,  in  form 
and  moving,  how  express  and  admirable  !  in  action, 
how  like  an  angel !  in  apprehension,  how  like  a 
god !"  is  followed  fast  upon  by  the  sad  confession, 
"Yet  man  delights  me  not,  nor  woman  neither." 
He  does  not,  as  we  say,  "  get  accustomed  to  his  sit- 
uation." He  holds  fast  by  the  wisdom  of  afflic- 
tion, and  will  not  let  her  go.  He  would  keep  her, 
for  she  is  his  life.  The  storm  has  descended,  and 
all  has  been  swept  away  but  the  rock.  To  this  he 
clings  for  safety.  He  will  not  return,  like  the  dog  to 
his  vomit.  He  will  not  render  unavailing  the  les- 


88  HAMLET. 

sons  of  Providence  by  "  getting  accustomed"  to  feed 
on  that  which  is  not  bread,  on  which  to  live  is  death. 
He  fears  nothing  save  the  loss  of  existence.  But 
this  thought  thunders  at  the  very  base  of  the  cliff 
on  which,  ship-wrecked  of  every  other  hope,  he  had 
been  thrown.  That  which  to  every  body  else  seems 
common,  presses  upon  him  with  an  all-absorbing  in- 
terest; he  struggles  with  the  mystery  of  his  own 
being,  the  root  of  all  other  mysteries,  until  it  has 
become  an  overmastering  element  in  his  own  mind, 
before  which  all  others  yield  and  seem  as  nothing. 

This  is  the  hinge  on  which  his  every  endeavor 
turns.  Such  a  thought  as  this  might  well  prove  more 
than  an  equal  counterpoise  to  any  incentive  to  what 
we  call  action.  The  obscurity  that  lies  over  these 
depths  of  Hamlet's  character,  arises  from  this  unique 
position  in  which  the  poet  exhibits  him  ;  a  position 
which  opens  to  us  the  basis  of  Shakspeare's  own  be- 
ing, and  which,  though  dimly  visible  to  all,  is  yet 
familiar  to  but  few.  There  is  action  indeed,  but  pro- 
jected on  so  gigantic  a  scale,  that,  like  the  motion  of 
some  of  the  heavenly  bodies,  from  whom  we  are  in- 
conceivably removed,  it  seems  a  perpetual  rest. 
With  Dr.  Johnson,  and  other  commentators,  we  are 
at  first  inclined  to  blame  Hamlet's  inactivity,  and  call 
him  weak  and  cowardly ;  but  as  we  proceed,  and 
his  character  and  situation  open  upon  us,  such  epi- 
thets seem  least  of  all  applicable  to  him.  So  far  is 


HAMLET.  89 

he  from  being  a  coward,  in  the  common  meaning  of 
that  term,  that  he  does  not  set  this  life  at  a  pin's 
fee.  He  is  contending  in  thought  with  the  great 
realities  beyond  it  —  the  dark  clouds  that  hang  over 
the  valley  of  the  shadow  of  death,  and  float  but  dim- 
ly and  indistinct  before  our  vision,  have,  like  his 
father's  ghost,  become  fixed  and  definite  "  in  his 
mind's  eye ;"  he  has  looked  them  into  shape,  and 
they  stand  before  him  wherever  he  turns,  with  a  pres- 
ence that  will  not  be  put  by.  Thus  it  is,  that  to 
most  he  seems  a  coward,  and  that  enterprises  which 
to  others  appear  of  great  pith  and  moment, 

"  With  this  regard,  their  currents  turn  awry 
And  lose  the  name  of  action." 

Macbeth  is  contending  with  the  realities  of  this  world, 
Hamlet  with  those  of  the  next.  The  struggle  which 
is  going  on  in  the  far-seeing  mind  of  Hamlet  never 
arrives  at  its  consummation  ;  Macbeth,  on  the  con- 
trary, is  short-sighted  enough  to  contend  with  the 
whips  and  scorns  of  time,  and  with  him,  therefore, 
the  mental  conflict  is  soon  over. 

"  If  it  were  done,  when  'tis  done,  then  'twere  well 
It  were  done  quickly  :  If  the  assassination 
Could  trammel  up  the  consequence,  and  catch 
With  his  surcease  success ;  that  but  this  blow 


90  HAMLET. 

Might  be  the  be-all  and  the  end-all  here, 
But  here  upon  this  bank  and  shoal  of  time 
We'd  jump  the  life  to  come" 

But  it  may  be  asked,  if  Hamlet  valued  this  life  so 
cheaply,  nay,  even  meditated  self-slaughter,  why, 
when  he  had  an  opportunity  of  dying  by  only  suffer- 
ing himself  to  be  carried  to  England,  he  should  fly 
that  very  death  he  before  sought  ?  To  this  question, 
the  state  of  his  mind  affords  us  a  satisfactory  answer  ; 
and  his  wavering  does  but  confirm  our  belief  in  his 
sincerity,  and  give  us  a  still  stronger  proof,  that  al- 
though there  is  nothing  from  which  he  would  more 
willingly  part  withal  —  except,  as  he  says,  "  my 
life,"  yet  still  does  the  deep  instinct  of  his  soul 
prompt  him  to  retain  it,  though  crushed  by  the  bur- 
den, while  he  doubts  lest  with  its  loss,  may  not  be 
connected  the  loss  of  all  being.  He  cared  not,  as 
he  says,  for  this  little  life,  a  pin's  fee  ;  but  for  life  it- 
self, his  whole  nature  called  in  cries  that  would  not 
be  silenced.  In  his  perplexity  and  doubt,  Hamlet 
had  interrogated  his  own  nature  on  the  great  ques- 
tion of  his  future  being ;  but  its  only  response  was 
—  "  the  dread  of  something  after  death  ;"  that  some- 
thing might  be  annihilation,  or, 

"  To  lie  in  cold  obstruction,  and  to  rot. 
or  to  be  worse  than  worst 


HAMLET.  91 

Of  those,  that  lawless  and  uncertain  thoughts 
Imagine  howling." 

In  the  bitterness  of  his  spirit,  but  half  concealed  by 
his  jests  in  the  graveyard,  he  asks  again  that  ques- 
tion from  which  he  cannot  escape,  sending  his  voice 
down  into  the  hollow  tomb,  and  hearing  but  the  echo 
of  his  own  words  in  reply.  He  loved  not  this  life, 
yet  endured  and  clung  to  it  because  he  doubted  of 
another ;  this  it  was 

"  That  made  calamity  of  so  long  life, 
And  made  him  rather  bear  those  ills  he  had 
Than  fly  to  others  that  he  knew  not  of." 

This  doubt  still  remained  after  all  his  reasoning; 
and,  gathering  strength  at  the  moment  of  death's  ac- 
tual approach,  led  him,  like  the  old  man  with  the 
bundle  of  sticks,  to  deny  that  he  had  summoned  him. 
This  view  will  account  for  Hamlet's  indecision. 
With  him  the  next  world,  by  the  intense  action  of 
his  thoughts,  had  become  as  real  as  the  present ; 
and,  whenever  this  is  the  case,  thought  must  always 
at  first  take  precedence  of  action.  We  have  said  at 
first,  for  it  ends  in  giving  the  strength  of  the  spirit  to 
the  arm  of  flesh.  Hamlet  frequently  accuses  him- 
self of  cowardice  arid  indecision,  yet  is  fully  con- 
scious, at  the  same  time,  of  faultlessness.  We  too 


92 


HAMLET. 


go  with  him,  and  at  first  accuse  him  of  it,  and  after- 
wards rest  in  as  full  a  conviction  as  he  himself,  that 
he  is  not  a  coward.  Could  we  view  him  from  the 
position  in  which  Shakspeare  must  have  seen  him, 
he  would  appear  a  hero  of  loftier  stature  and  nobler 
action,  than  any  other  that  now  wins  our  admiration 
from  among  his  numberless  creations.  Had  we 
Shakspeare's  eye,  we  should  not  so  much  be  touched 
by  the  mere  outward  show  of  madness  and  inaction, 
but  looking  beyond  these  at  the  deeper  meaning, 
should  exclaim, 

"  O,  what  a  noble  mind  is  here ! 
The  courtier's,  soldier's,  scholar's,  eye,  tongue, 

sword, 

The  expectancy  and  rose  of  the  fair  state, 
The  glass  of  fashion,  and  the  mould  of  form, 
The  observed  of  all  observers !" 

Then  too  might  we  understand  the  delicate  and  hid- 
den satire  in  that  comparison  which  he  makes  be- 
tween himself  and  Fortinbras. 

"  Witness  this  army  of  such  mass  and  charge, 
Led  by  a  delicate  and  tender  prince, 
Whose  spirit  with  divine  ambition  puiTd, 
Makes  mouths  at  the  invisible  event ; 
Exposing  what  is  mortal  and  unsure, 


HAMLET.  93 

To  all  that  fortune,  death  and  danger  dare 
Even  for  an  egg-shell." 

Even  the  revenge  which  suggests  itself  to  Hamlet  is 
not  of  this  world.  To  others  it  would  assume  a 
character  of  the  most  savage  enormity,  and  one 
from  which,  of  all  men,  the  tender  and  conscientious 
prince  would  soonest  shrink.  But  with  him  it  is  as 
natural  as  his  most  ordinary  action.  He  has  looked 
through  the  slight  afflictions  of  this  world,  and  his 
prophetic  eye  is  fixed  on  the  limitless  extent  beyond. 
Here  and  here  alone,  will  the  fire  of  the  king's  in- 
cestuous lust  burn  unquenched,  and  the  worm  of  re- 
morse never  die.  Hence  are  heard  the  words  that 
seem  to  rise  from  a  fiendish  depth  in  the  bosom. 

"  Up  sword  and  know  thou  a  more  horrid  hent : 
When  he  is  drunk,  asleep,  or  in  his  rage." 

We,  who  dignify  as  "  enterprises  of  great  pith  and 
moment,"  the  actions  of  those  who  like  Fortinbras 

"  Make  mouths  at  the  invisible  event," 

axe  but  poorly  fitted  to  judge  of  one  to  whom  "  the 
invisible  event"  is  the  whole.  That -regard  which 
checked  Macbeth's  action  in  part,  checked  Hamlet's 
altogether.  We  may,  by  and  by,  come  to  see  that 


94  HAMLET. 

there  may  be  more  of  true  heroic  action  in  a  mental 
conflict  that  never  results  in  a  deed,  than  in  a  thou- 
sand that  do ;  that  it  is  at  the  root  of  the  tree  of 
self  within  the  heart,  that  Christ  has  laid  the  axe ;  and 
that  here  fall  the  blows  that  sound  loudest  and  farth- 
est through  the  kingdom  of  Satan.  We  have  to  do 
with  this  world  only,  and  the  objects  of  sense  which 
are  our  daily  care,  unmodified  by  the  great  ideas  of 
death  and  eternity,  stand  before  us  in  a  light  and 
greatness  not  their  own.  Hamlet,  on  the  other  hand, 
is  dealing  with  both  worlds  at  once  ;  and,  under  the 
influence  of  those  spiritual  realities  which  should 
qualify  our  thoughts,  he  describes  objects  in  a  man- 
ner, which  from  our  position  appears  very  strange 
and  distorting.  Under  the  transforming  power  of 
such  ideas,  what  seems  to  us  of  permanent  shape 
and  coloring,  to  him  is  like  a  many-tinted  cloud 
continually  varying  in  hue  and  form. 

Hamlet.  Do  you  see  yonder  cloud,  that's  almost 
in  the  shape  of  a  camel  ? 

Polonius.  By  the  mass,  and  'tis  like  a  camel  in- 
deed. 

Hamlet.     Methinks,  it  is  like  a  weasel. 

Polonius.     It  is  backed  like  a  weasel. 

Hamlet.     Or,  like  a  whale  ? 

Polonius.     Very  like  a  whale. 


HAMLET. 


95 


After  all  that  has  been  said  to  explain  the  apparent 
inactivity  of  Hamlet,  we  must  still  feel  that,  although 
we  have  accounted  for,  and  shown  the  naturalness 
of  his  delay,  yet  the  character  of  the  son,  and  he 
"  the  son  of  a  dear  father  murdered,"  is  still  some- 
what less  earnest  in  Hamlet  than  we  should  have  ex- 
pected.    This  particular  view  of  his  circumstance, 
which  we  have  given,  is  pressed  too  far  home  to  be 
entirely  natural.    It  seems  as  if  Shakspeare,  feeling  a 
more  than  common  sympathy  with  the  situation  he 
had  assumed  for  the  expression  of  his  own  feelings, 
put  too  much  of  himself,  so  to  speak,  in  the  compo- 
sition.    We  feel  that  Hamlet  is  rather  such  a  son  as 
Shakspeare  would  have  made,  than  the  Hamlet  of 
the   king's   own  household.      The  poet's  intention 
in  this  play  was  not,  we  think,  as  Goethe  says,  "  to 
exhibit  the  effects  of  a  great  action  imposed  as  a  du- 
ty on  a  mind  too  feeble  for  its  accomplishment ;" 
nor,  as  Coleridge  expresses  it,  "  to  exhibit  a  charac- 
ter flying  from  the  sense  of  reality  and  seeking  a  re- 
prieve from  the  pressure  of  its  duties  in  that  ideal 
activity,  the  overbalance  of  which  with  the  conse- 
quent indisposition  to  action  is  Hamlet's  disease." 
These  are  but  accidents,  and  had  the  design  been 
such  as  these  suppose  in  Shakspeare,  this  play  would 
never  have  been  written.     No,  it  was  not  for  ends 
like  these,  but  for  an  end  of  which  these  should 
prove  but  accidents.     Was  he  strongly  sensible  of  a 


96  HAMLET. 

purpose,  —  it  must  have  been  to  open  to  our  view  that 
wild  tumultuous  sea  of  thoughts  which  was  rolling  in 
the  breast  of  Hamlet,  when  the  idea  of  death  and 
the  presence  of  things  invisible,  stood  sensible  to 
sight  and  touch  before  him.  This  thought,  breaking 
upon  him  in  so  terrible  and  unexpected  a  form,  tore 
from  life,  at  one  rude  grasp,  the  gaudy  and  alluring 
attire  with  which  it  is  arrayed  to  the  eye  of  sense  ; 
andx  blotting  out  "  all  trivial  fond  records,  all  saws  of 
books,"  it  fronted  him  in  its  own  grim-  reality.  Well 
might  he  feel,  if  this  was  all  there  was  of  living,  to 
him  it  was  valueless.  Unlike  Claudio  and  Macbeth, 
the  goods  of  this  world,  were  they  all,  appeared  not 
to  him  of  consequence  enough  to  deserve  a  moment's 
regard  ;  —  in  the  wide  firmament  of  his  vision,  time 
and  space  had  dwindled  to  what  they  really  are, 
but  golden  points  of  an  immensity. 

Hamlet  has  been  called  mad,  but,  as  we  think, 
Shakspeare-tfrought  more  of  his  madness  than  he  did 
of  the  wisdom  of  the  rest  of  the  play.  Like  the 
vision-struck  Paul,  in  the  presence  of  Felix,  he 
spoke  what  to  those  around  him,  whose  eyes  had  net 
been  opened  on  that  light  brighter  than  the  sun, 
seemed  madness  ;  but  which  was,  in  fact,  the  words 
of  truth  and  soberness.  Men  have  felt  that  though 
mad,  as  they  thought,  there  was  still  a  method  in  it ; 
and  that  there  was  something  in  his  language  which 
revealed  them  to  themselves,  and  to  which,  though 


HAMLET.  97 

ignorant  of  its  full  meaning,  every  human  heart 
must  and  does  beat  responsive.  We  must  not  sup- 
pose from  the  impression  that  words  make  upon  us, 
that  we  necessarily  understand  what  they  mean  to 
others.  W^e  are  but  too  apt  to  mistake  for  knowledge 
the  sounds  that  give  us  a  mere  outside  recognition 
of  the  states  of  mind  from  which  they  proceed- 
ed. It  is  the  spirit  that  quickens  what  we  hear, 
—  the  mere  hearing  is  nothing.  The  words  which 
I  say  to  you,  says  our  Savior,  are  spirit,  and  quicken 
with  eternal  life,  —  they  are  not  addressed  to  the 
flesh,  nor  are  they  life-giving  to  that.  We  must  not 
think,  because  we  know  the  dictionary  meaning  of 
the  word  Death,  and  can  enumerate  a  few  of  the  sen- 
sible changes  it  produces,  that  we  know  its  whole 
meaning, — all  that  one  feels  when  it  has  become  a 
frequent  thought  to  his  mind,  modifying,  as  it  was  de- 
signed to  do,  every  other  thought.  Much  less  must 
we  suppose  ourselves  to  have  found  the  divine  mean- 
ing of  that  eternal  life  of  which  Jesus  speaks ;  'uxtil 
we  have  experienced  that  death  of  our  own  wills, 
against  which  we  are  to  strive  continually  in  our 
minds  unto  blood.  Shakspeare's  words  too,  like 
those  of  all  true  men,  have  a  meaning  whose  ful- 
ness can  only  be  felt  by  a  spirit  in  a  similar  state 
to  his  from  whose  lips  they  fell.  Spoken  with- 
out this,  they  are  but  sounds  filling  the  empty  cham- 
bers of  the  soul  with  noisy  echoes.  They  pass  be- 
7 


98 


HAMLET. 


fore  us,  dim  and  shadowy,  as  the  phantom  kings  be- 
fore the  eyes  of  Macbeth,  the  silent  witnesses  of  a 
world  to  us  unrealized ;  —  speechless,  save  as  the 
workings  of  our  own  souls  give  them  utterance.  Let 
us  not  then  suppose,  that,  by  treasuring  up  the  golden 
language  that  has  fallen  from  other  tongues  of  pow- 
er, we  are  gaining  for  ourselves  a  fast  possession ; 
for  unless  their  spirit  is  growing  up  within  us, 
to  fill  their  dumb  words  with  the  eloquence,  of  life, 
our  piled  wealth,  like  the  rich  colored  leaves  of  au- 
tumn, will  shrink  in  our  hands  to  the  dark  and  worth- 
less emblems  of  decay. 

We  need  not  go  farther  to  show,  what  will  now  be 
apparent,  the  tendency  of  Shakspeare  to  overact 
this  particular  part  of  Hamlet,  and  thus  give  it  an 
obscurity  from  too  close  a  connexion  with  his  own 
mind,  —  a  state  so  difficult  to  approach.  It  is  plain 
that  to  him  the  thought  of  death,  and  the  condition 
of  being  to  which  that  change  might  subject  him, 
would  ever  be  his  nearest  thoughts ;  and  that,  where- 
ever  there  exists  the  strong  sense  of  life,  these  ideas 
must  follow  hard  upon  it.  In  the  question  of  Ham- 
let, the  thoughts,  as  well  as  the  words,  have  their 
natural  order,  when  "  to  be"  is  followed  by  "  not  to 
be."  And  we  think  that  no  one  can  read  the  words  of 
Claudio,  or  the  soliloquy  of  Hamlet,  without  thinking 
that,  for  Shakspeare,  they  must  have  had  no  com- 
mon meaning.  Here  we  find  a  reason  for  his  occu- 


HAMLET.  99 

pying  so  strongly  this  particular  position.  This  idea 
not  only  renders  the  inconsistencies  of  Hamlet  har- 
monious, but  places  also  the  whole  tragedy  on  a 
common  ground  with  the  rest  of  Shakspeare's  plays. 
Viewed  in  its  light  they  all  become  but  part  and  par- 
cel of  one  mind ;  without  it,  Hamlet  must  always  re- 
main, as  it  has  hitherto  done,  a  character  apart  from 
that  of  the  others,  darkened  with  a  mystery  too  deep 
for  us  to  scan.  Our  thoughts,  and  those  of  Hamlet 
and  Shakspeare  are  strangely  opposite.  With  them, 
to  be  or  not  to  be,  — that  is  the  question ;  with  us  there 
is  no  question  at  all  about  that,  —  we  take  that  to  be 
settled.  With  us,  to  be  rich  or  not  to  be  rich,  to  be 
wise  or  not  to  be  wise,  to  be  honored  or  not  to  be 
honored,  —  those  are  the  questions.  It  is  because  we 
live  so  continually  in  this  state  of  mind,  that  we  are 
unable  to  conceive  of  Hamlet's  character,  and  to  see 
Shakspeare  himself  in  his  creations.  This  it  is  that 
inclines  many  to  say  of  the  celebrated  soliloquy,  as 
Goldsmith  has  said,  that  it  "  is  in  our  opinion,  a  heap 
of  absurdities,  whether  we  consider  the  situation,  the 
sentiments,  the  argumentation  or  the  poetry ;  that 
it  does  not  appear  that  Hamlet  had  the  least  reason 
to  wish  for  death,  but  every  motive  which  may  be 
supposed  to  influence,  concurred  to  render  life  de- 
sirable, —  revenge  towards  the  usurper ;  love  for  the 
fair  Ophelia ;  and  the  ambition  of  reigning."  We 
should  naturally  think  with  Goldsmith,  and  think 


100  HAMLET, 

rightly,  that  if  these  were  all  the  motives  that  innV 
enced  Shakspeare  in  the  conception  of  Hamlet,  there 
were  a  great  many  things  in  the  play  besides  the  so~ 
liloquy,  that  were  out  of  place.     Johnson  viewed  it 
also  in  this  manner,    and,   in  consequence,   says ; 
"  that  there  are  some  scenes  which  neither  forward 
nor  retard  the  action,  and  that  for  the  feigned  mad- 
ness of  Hamlet  there  is  no  adequate  cause,  for  he 
does  nothing  which  he  might  not  have  done  with  the 
reputation  of  sanity."    But  the  moment  we  consid- 
er that  this  is  but  a  quarter  thought  by  which  we 
would  endeavour  to  explain  the  whole  ;  and  that  the 
largest  half  of  his  design  must  have  been  to  show 
the  action  in  which  his  own  mind  was  thrown  in 
Hamlet's  case,  these  difficulties  at  once  clear  up  ; 
and  the  parts  that  before  stood  out  as  dark  and  un- 
sightly excrescences  from  the  play,  become,  in  an  in- 
stant, its  gilded  summits  of  light.     The  thoughts  of 
the  soliloquy  are  not  found  to  belong  to  a  particular 
part  of  this  play,  but  to  be  the  spirit  of  the  whole. 
To  be  or  not  to  be  is  written  over  its  every  scene 
from  the  entrance  of  the  ghost,  to  the  rude  inscrip- 
tion over  the  gate-way  of  the   church-yard ;   and, 
whenever  we  shall  have  built  up,  in  ourselves,  the 
true  conception  of  this  the  greatest  of  the    poets, 
To  be  or  not  to  be,  will  be  found  to  be  chiselled  in 
golden  letters  on  the  very  key-stone  of  that  arch 
wliich  tells  us  of  his  memory. 


HAMLET.  101 


It  is  this  mystery  which  hangs  ,6tferJ  pui  Being, 
which  Shakspeare  felt  more  ^strongly,  perhaps*  than 
any  other  of  our  race  ever  -did',  fh^t.eii^ble^^i^Cc; 
<?ast  so  deep  the  dark  foundations  of  his  supernat- 
ural beings,  and  give  them  all  but  that  power  over 
us  which  their  actual  visitation  would  have.  It  is 
not  that  the  ghost  has  usurped  the  form  and  majesty 
of  buried  Denmark,  and 

"  again  in  complete  steel 
Revisits  thus  the  glimpses  of  the  moon, 
Making  night  hideous," 

that  he  chains  us  with  awe  ;  but  it  is  because  he  has 
usurped  a  form  which,  in  the  moments  when  we  are 
most  ourselves,  our  own  souls  will  summon  up  to 
question  the  secrets  of  their  destiny.  We  do  not 
fear  it  more  than  Hamlet  ;  for  we  feel  there  is  some 
natural  connection  between  us  and  another  world, 
"  being,"  as  he  says,  "  things  immortal  as  itself." 
And  again,  in  the  soliloquy,  when  Hamlet  speaks  of 

"  The  undiscovered  country,  from  whose  bourne 
No  traveller  returns"  — 

why  has  he  forgotten  his  spiritual  visitant,  unless  it 
was  to  show  us  how  trifling  and  unimportant  this  in- 
cident was  in  the  play,  before  the  great  reality  of  a 
soul  unsatisfied  in  its  longings  after  immortality  ? 


102  HAMLET. 

V  A  state,  of  Jrhincf  like  this  affords  an  easy  and  nat~ 
ura1  solution  .of  Hamtefs  treatment  of  Ophelia.  Her 
fcTved'Her  deeply*  —  cl6eper  than  aught  else  ;  yet  when 
she  broke  in  upon  his  soliloquy,  in  which  existence 
itself  now  and  forever  seemed  questionable,  and 
the  sun,  on  which  that  world  of  love  within  his 
bosom  hung,  seemed  ready  to  be  blotted  out,  the 
thought  of  all  this  might  well  work  in  him  that 
bitterness,  whose  poignance  but  the  more  strongly 
proved  his  love.  The  view  of  the  world  and  all  its 
hopes  and  fears  which  he  has  just  expressed,  is  a 
sufficient  explanation  of  the  whole  scene.  As  he 
has  said  before,  man  delights  him  not  nor  woman 
neither ;  and  as  the  thought'  too  of  his  uncle's  and 
his  mother's  wickedness  presses  upon  his  mind,  and 
there  seems  to  him  nothing  that  can  be  trusted,  no- 
thing sure;  we  may  pardon  the  harshness  of  his 
words  to  Ophelia,  "  Get  thee  to  a  nunnery ;  why 
shouldst  thou  be  a  breeder  of  sinners  ?"  Then  too 
we  may  sympathize  with  him,  when,  as  if  to  palliate 
a  harshness  which  in  his  present  state  of  mind  he 
cannot  but  feel,  he  turns  with  like  reproach  upon 
himself — "I  am  myself  indifferent  honest."  His 
language  therefore,  in  this  scene,  is  in  perfect  keep- 
ing with  the  rest  of  the  play,  and  his  own  character.. 
There  is  no  dissimulation,  as  has  been  supposed, — - 
for  there  was  need  of  none. 

The  words  of  Hamlet  as  a  lover  are,  as  we  think, 


HAMLET.  103 

In  some  respects  parallel  to  those  addressed  by  him 
as  a  son  to  his  father's  shade,  —  when  he  exclaims 
to  the  ghost  beneath ;  "  Ha,  ha,  boy  !  sayst  thou  so ; 
art  thou  there,  true  penny?"  and  again — "Well 
said,  old  mole !  canst  work  in  the  earth  so  fast  ?"  In 
the  height  of  emotion  and  mental  conflict  to  which 
he  is  raised  by  these  contemplations,  he  finds  re- 
lief, as  in  the  grave  yard,  in  expressions  which 
seem  strangely  at  variance  with  each  other ;  but 
which,  in  reality,  are  but  natural  alternations.  So 
much  does  he  dwell  in  the  world  of  spirits  that  there 
is  a  sort  of  ludicrous  aspect  upon  which  his  mind 
seizes  as  often  as  it  returns  to  this.  "  There  is 
something,"  says  Scott,  "in  my  deepest  afflictions 
and  most  gloomy  hours,  that  compels  me  to  mix 
with  my  distresses  strange  snatches  of  mirth,  which 
have  no  mirth  in  them." 

Before  we  lose  sight  of  this  noblest,  yet  still  un- 
appreciated monument  of  Shakspeare's  mind,  we 
cannot  but  pause  for  a  moment  and  look  back  with 
awe  and  admiration  upon  its  dark  and  majestic  out- 
line, as  it  stands  towering  against  the  sky,  —  the 
kingly  pyramid  of  the  prince  of  Denmark  covering 
in  its  secret  chambers  a  mystery  more  hidden,  and 
precious,  than  that  which  the  pile  of  an  Egyptian 
monarch,  though  reared  with  a  thousand  hands,  is 
fabled  to  conceal.  His  thoughts,  though  common 
with  us  as  the  sun-light  and  the  air,  are,  like  them, 


104  HAMLET. 

mighty  hieroglyphics  which  may  indeed  have  false 
meanings  attached  to  them,  but  which  can  never  be 
interpreted  until  the  wisdom  of  God  is  shed  abroad 
in  our  hearts.  Then  shall  we  read  and  understand. 
Then  may  we  be  touched  by  his  own  sadness  as  we 
listen  to  this  last  farewell  of  our  Shakspeare. 

"  Our  revels  now  are  ended :  these  our  actors-, 
As  I  foretold  you,  were  all  spirits,  and 
Are  melted  into  air,  into  thin  air : 
And  like  the  baseless  fabric  of  this  vision, 
The  cloud-capped  towers,  the  gorgeous  palaces, 
The  solemn  temples,  the  great  globe  itself, 
Yea  all  which  it  inherit  shall  dissolve  ; 
And  like  this  unsubstantial  pageant  faded, 
Leave  not  a  rack  behind  :  we  are  such  stuff 
As  dreams  are  made  of,  and  our  little  life 
Is  rounded  with  a  sleep.     Sir  I  am  vexed  ; 
Bear  with  my  weakness ;  my  old  brain  is  troub- 
led. 

Be  not  disturbed  with  my  infirmity : 

*#*##*#**## 

But  hence  retire  me  to  my"  AVON,  "  where 
Every  third  thought  shall  be  my  grave.'* 


POEMS. 


POEMS- 


TO  THE  HUMMING-BIRD. 

I  CANNOT  heal  thy  green  gold  breast, 
Where  deep  those  cruel  teeth  have  prest, 
Nor  bid  thee  raise  thy  ruffled  crest, 

And  seek  thy  mate, 
Who  sits  alone  within  thy  nest, 

Nor  sees  thy  fate. 

No  more  with  him  in  summer  hours 
Thou'lt  hum  amid  the  leafy  bowers, 
Nor  hover  round  the  dewy  flowers, 

To  feed  thy  young ; 
Nor  seek,  when  evening  darkly  lowers, 

Thy  nest  high  hung. 


108  POEMS. 

No  more  thou'lt  know  a  mother's  care 
Thy  honied  spoils  at  eve  to  share, 
Nor  teach  thy  tender  brood  to  dare 

With  upward  spring, 
Their  path  through  fields  of  sunny  air, 

On  new  fledged  wing. 

For  thy  return  in  vain  shall  wait 

Thy  tender  young,  thy  fond  fond  mate, 

Till  night's  last  stars  beam  forth  full  late 

On  their  sad  eyes ; 
Unknown,  alas !  thy  cruel  fate, 

Unheard  thy  cries ! 

ma    .-*•  am'? 


POEMS.  109 


EHEU  !  FUGACES,  POSTHTJME,  POSTHUME, 
LABUNTUR  ANNI. 

FLEETING  years  are  ever  bearing 

In  their  silent  course  away 
All  that  in  our  pleasures  sharing 

Lent  to  life  a  cheering  ray. 

Beauty's  cheek  but  blooms  to  wither, 
Smiling  hours  but  come  to  fly ; 

They  are1  gone ;  Time's  but  the  giver 
Of  whate'er  is  doomed  to  die. 

Thou  may'st  touch  with  blighting  finger 
All  that  sense  can  here  enjoy ; 

Yet  within  my  soul  shall  linger 
That  which  thou  canst  not  destroy. 

Love's  sweet  voice  shall  there  awaken 
Joys  that  earth  cannot  impart ; 

Joys  that  live  when  thou  hast  taken 
All  that  here  can  charm  the  heart. 

As  the  years  come  gliding  by  me, 
Fancy's  pleasing  visions  rise  ; 

Beauty's  cheek,  ah !  still  I  see  thee, 
Still  your  glances,  soft  blue  eyes ! 


110  POEMS. 

LINES 


POET'S  hand  has  placed  thee  there, 
Autumn's  brown  and  withered  scroll ! 
Though  to  outward  eye  not  fair, 
Thou  hast  beauty  for  the  soul, 

Though  no  human  pen  has  traced 
On  that  leaf  its  learned  lore, 
Love  divine  the  page  has  graced, — 
What  can  words  discover  more  ? 

Not  alone  dim  Autumn's  blast 
Echoes  from  yon  tablet  sear, — 
Distant  music  of  the  Past 
Steals  upon  the  poet's  ear. 

Voices  sweet  of  summer  hours, 
Spring's  soft  whispers  murmur  by ; 
Feathered  songs  from  leafy  bowers 
Draw  his  listening  soul  on  high. 


POEMS.  Ill 


MEMORY. 

SOON  the  waves  so  lightly  bounding 
All  forget  the  tempest  blast ; 

Soon  the  pines  so  sadly  sounding 
Cease  to  mourn  the  storm  that's  past. 

Soon  is  hushed  the  voice  of  gladness 
Heard  within  the  green  wood's  breast; 

Yet  come  back  no  notes  of  sadness, 
No  remembrance  breaks  its  rest. 

But  the  heart, — how  fond  t'will  treasure 
Every  note  of  grief  and  joy ! 

Oft  come  back  the  notes  of  pleasure, 
Griefs  sad  echoes  oft  annoy. 

There  still  dwell  the  looks  that  vanish 
Swift  as  brightness  of  a  dream ; 

Time  in  vain  earth's  smiles  may  banish, 
There  undying  still  they  beam. 


1155  POEMS. 

I 

TO  THE  PAINTED  COLUMBINE. 

BRIGHT  image  of  the  early  years 
When  glowed  my  cheek  as  red  as  thou, 
And  life's  dark  throng  of  cares  and  fears 

Were  swift- winged  shadows  o'er  my  sunny  brow ! 

\ 

Thou  blushest  from  the  painter's  page, 
Robed  in  the  mimic  tints  of  art ; 
But  Nature's  hand  in  jputh's  green  age. 

With  fairer  hues  first  traced  thee  on  my  heart. 

The  morning's  blush,  she  made  it  thine, 
The  morn's  sweet  breath,  she  gave  it  thee, 
And  in  thy  look,  my  Columbine ! 
Each  fond-remembered  spot  she  bade  me  see. 

I  see  the  hill's  far- gazing  head, 
Where  gay  thou  noddest  in  the  gale ; 
I  hear  light-bounding  footsteps  tread 
The  grassy  path  that  winds  along  the  vale. 

I  hear  the  voice  of  woodland  song 
Break  from  each  bush  and  well-known  tree, 
And  on  light  pinions  borne  along, 
Comes  back  the  laugh  from  childhood's  heart  of  glee. 


POEMS.  113 

O'er  the  dark  rock  the  dashing  brook, 
With  look  of  anger,  leaps  again, 
And,  hastening  to  each  flowery  nook, 
Its  distant  voice  is  heard  far  down  the  glen. 

Fair  child  of  art !  thy  charms  decay, 
Touched  by  the  withered  hand  of  Time ; 
And  hushed  the  music  of  that  day, 
When  my  voice  mingled  with  the  streamlet's  chime ; 

But  on  my  heart  thy  cheek  of  bloom 
Shall  live  when  Nature's  smile  has  fled ; 
And,  rich  with  memory's  sweet  perfume, 
Shall  o'er  her  grave  thy  tribute  incense  shed. 

There  shalt  thou  live  and  wake  the  glee 
That  echoed  on  thy  native  hill ; 
And  when,  loved  flower !  I  think  of  thee, 
My  infant  feet  will  seem  to  seek  thee  still. 


114  POEMS. 


TO  THE  FOSSIL  FLOWER. 

DARK  fossil  flower  !  I  see  thy  leaves  unrolled, 
With  all  thy  lines  of  beauty  freshly  marked, 
As  when  the  eye  of  Morn  beamed  on  thee  first, 
And  thou  first  turn'dst  to  meet  its  welcome  smile. 
And  sometimes  in  the  coals'  bright  rain-bow  hues, 
I  dream  I  see  the  colors  of  thy  prime, 
And  for  a  moment  robe  thy  form  again 
In  splendor  not  its  own.     Flower  of  the  past ! 
Now  as  I  look  on  thee,  life's  echoing  tread 
Falls  noiseless  on  my  ear  ;  the  present  dies  ; 
And  o'er  my  soul  the  thoughts  of  distant  time, 
In  silent  waves,  like  billows  from  the  sea, 
Come  roling  on  and  on,  with  ceaseless  flow, 
Innumerable.     Thou  may'st  have  sprung  unsown 
Into  thy  noon  of  life,  when  first  earth  heard 
Its  Maker's  sovereign  voice  ;  and  laughing  flowers 
Waved  o'er  the  meadows,  hung  on  mountain  crags, 
And  nodded  in  the  breeze  on  every  hill. 
Thou  may'st  have  bloomed  unseen,  save  by  the  stars 
That  sang  together  o'er  thy  rosy  birth, 
And  came  at  eve  to  watch  thy  folded  rest. 
None  may  have  sought  thee  on  thy  fragrant  home, 
Save    light-voiced  winds  that  round  thy  dwelling 
played, 


POEMS.  115 

Or  seemed  to  sigh,  as  oft  their  winged  haste 
Compelled  their  feet  to  roam.     Thou  may'st  have 

lived 

Beneath  the  light  of  later  days,  when  man 
With  feet  free-roving  as  the  homeless  wind, 
Scaled  the  thick-mantled  height,  coursed  plains  un- 
shorn, 

Breaking  the  solitude  of  nature's  haunt 
With  voice  that  seemed  to  blend,  in  one  sweet  strain, 
The  mingled  music  of  the  elements. 
And  when  against  his  infant  frame  they  rose, 
Uncurbed,  unawed  by  his  yet  feeble  hand, 
And  when  the  muttering  storm,  and  shouting  wave, 
And  rattling  thunder,  mated,  round  him  raged, 
And  seemed  at  times  like  daemon  foes  to  gird, 
Thou  may'st  have  won  with  gentle  look  his  heart, 
And  stirred  the  first  warm  prayer  of  gratitude, 
And  been  his  first,  his  simplest  altar-gift. 
For  thee,  dark  flower!  the  kindling  sun  can  bring 
No  more  the  colors  that  it  gave,  nor  morn, 
With  kindly  kiss,  restore  thy  breathing  sweets : 
Yet  may  the  mind's  mysterious  touch  recall 
The  bloom  and  fragrance  of  thy  early  prime : 
For  HE  who  to  the  lowly  lily  gave 
A  glory  richer  than  to  proudest  king, 
He  painted  not  those  darkly-shining  leaves, 
With  blushes  like  the  dawn,  in  vain ;  nor  gave 
To  thee  its  sweetly-scented  breath,  to  waste 


116  POEMS. 

Upon  the  barren  air.     E'en  though  thou  stood 
Alone  in  nature's  forest-home  untrod, 
The  first-love  of  the  stars  and  sighing  winds, 
The  mineral  holds  with  faithful  trust  thy  form, 
To  wake  in  human  hearts  sweet  thoughts  of  love, 
Now  the  dark  past  hangs  round  thy  memory. 


POEMS.  117 


TO  THE  CANARY  BIRD. 

I  CANNOT  hear  thy  voice  with  others'  ears, 

Who  make  of  thy  lost  liberty  a  gain ; 

And  in  thy  tale  of  blighted  hopes  and  fears 

Feel  not  that  every  note  is  born  with  pain. 

Alas !  that  with  thy  music's  gentle  swell 

Past   days   of  joy   should   through   thy  memory 

throng, 

And  each  to  thee  their  words  of  sorrow  tell, 
While  ravished  sense  forgets  thee  in  thy  song. 
The  heart  that  on  the  past  and  future  feeds, 
And  pours  in  human  words  its  thoughts  divine, 
Though  at  each  birth  the  spirit  inly  bleeds, 
Its  song  may  charm  the  listening  ear  like  thine, 
And  men  with  gilded  cage  and  praise  will  try 
To  make  the  bard  like  thee  forget  his  native  sky. 


118 


POEMS. 


NATURE. 

j  NATURE  !  my  love  for  thee  is  deeper  far 
j  Than  strength  of  words  though  spirit-born  can  tell ; 
For  while  I  gaze  they  seem  my  soul  to  bar, 
That  in  thy  widening  streams  would  onward  swell 
Bearing  thy  mirrored  beauty  on  its  breast,  — 
Now,  through  thy  lonely  haunts  unseen  to  glide, 
A  motion  that  scarce  knows  itself  from  rest, 
With  pictured  flowers  and  branches  on  its  tide ; 
Then,  by  the  noisy  city's  frowning  wall, 
Whose  armed  heights  within  its  waters  gleam, 
To  rush  with  answering  voice  to  ocean's  call, 
And  mingle  with  the  deep  its  swollen  stream, 
Whose  boundless  bosom's  calm  alone  can  hold, 
That  heaven  of  glory  in  thy  skies  unrolled.. 


POEMS. 


119 


THE  TREE. 

I  LOVE  thee  when  thy  swelling  buds  appear 
And  one  by  one  their  tender  leaves  unfold, 
As  if  they'knew  that  warmer  suns  were  near, 
Nor  longer  sought  to  hide  from  winter's  cold ; 
And  when  with  darker  growth  thy  leaves  are  seen 
To  veil  from  view  the  early  robin's  nest, 
I  love  to  lie  beneath  thy  waving  skreen 
With  limbs  by  summer's  heat  and  toil  opprest ; 
And  when  the  autumn  winds  have  stript  thee  bare, 
And  round  thee  lies  the  smooth  untrodden  snow, 
When  nought  is  thine  that  made  thee  once  so  fair, 
I  love  to  watch  thy  shadowy  form  below, 
And  through  thy  leafless  arms  to  look  above 
On  stars  that  brighter  beam  when  most  we  need  their 
love. 


120  POEMS. 


THE  STRANGER'S  GIFT. 

I  FOUND  far  culled  from  fragrant  field  and  grove 
Each  flower  that  makes  our  Spring  a  welcome 

guest; 

In  one  sweet  bond  of  brotherhood  inwove 
An  osier  band  their  leafy  stalks  compressed ; 
A  stranger's  hand  had  made  their  bloom  my  own, 
And  fresh  their  fragrance  rested  on  the  air  ; 
His  gift  was  mine  —  but  he  who  gave  unknown, 
And  my  heart  sorrowed  though  the  flowers  were 

fair. 

Now  oft  I  grieve  to  meet  them  on  the  lawn, 
As  sweetly  scattered  round  my  path  they  grow, 
By  One  who  on  their  petals  paints  the  dawn, 
And  gilt  with  sunset  splendors  bids  them  glow, 
For  I  ne'er  asked  '  who  steeps  them  in  perfume  ?' 
Nor  anxious  sought  His  love  who  crowns  them  all 

with  bloom. 


POEMS.  121 


THY  BEAUTY  FADES. 

THY  beauty  fades  and  with  it  too  my  love, 
For  'twas  the  self-same  stalk  that  bore  its  flower ; 
Soft  fell  the  rain,  and  breaking  from  above 
The  sun  looked  out  upon  our  nuptial  hour ; 
And  I  had  thought  forever  by  thy  side 
With  bursting  buds  of  hope  in  youth  to  dwell, 
But  one  by  one  Time  strewed  thy  petals  wide, 
And  every  hope's  wan  look  a  grief  can  .tell : 
For  I  had  thoughtless  lived  beneath  his  sway, 
Who  like  a  tyrant  dealeth  with  us  all, 
Crowning  each  rose,  though  rooted  on  decay, 
With  charms  that  shall  the  spirit's  love  enthral, 
And  for  a  season  turn  the  soul's  pure  eyes 
From  virtue's  changeless  bloom  that  time  and  death 
defies. 


122  POEMS. 


BEAUTY. 

I  GAZED  upon  thy  face, — and  beating  life 
Once  stilled  its  sleepless  pulses  in  my  breast, 
And  every  thought  whose  being  was  a  strife 
Each  in  its  silent  chamber  sank  to  rest ; 
I  was  not,  save  it  were  a  thought  of  thee, 
The  world  was  but  a  spot  where  thou  hadst  trod, 
From  every  star  thy  glance  seemed  fixed  on  me, 
Almost  I  loved  thee  better  than  my  God. 
And  still  I  gaze,  —  but  'tis  a  holier  thought 
Than  that  in  which  my  spirit  lived  before, 
Each  star  a  purer  ray  of  love  has  caught, 
Earth  wears  a  lovelier  robe  than  then  it  wore, 
And  every  lamp  that  burns  around  thy  shrine 
Is  fed  with  fire  whose  fountain  is  Divine. 


POEMS.  123 


THE  WIND-FLOWER. 

THOU  lookest  up  with  meek  confiding  eye 
Upon  the  clouded  smile  of  April's  face, 
Unharmed  though  Winter  stands  uncertain  by 
Eyeing  with  jealous  glance  each  opening  grace 
Thou  trustest  wisely  !  in  thy  faith  arrayed 
More  glorious  thou  than  Israel's  wisest  King ; 
Such  faith  was  his  whom  men  to  death  betrayed 
As  thine  who  hear'st  the  timid  voice  of  Spring, 
While  other  flowers  still  hide  them  from  her  call 
Along  the  river's  brink  and  meadow  bare. 
Thee  will  I  seek  beside  the  stony  wall, 
And  in  thy  trust  with  childlike  heart  would  share, 
O'erjoyed  that  in  thy  early  leaves  I  find 
A  lesson  taught  by  him  who  loved  all  human  kind. 


124  POEMS. 


THE  ROBIN. 

THOIT  need'st  not  flutter  from  thy  half-built  nest, 
Whene'er  thou  hear'st  man's  hurrying  feet  go  by, 
Fearing  his  eye  for  harm  may  on  thee  rest, 
Or  he  thy  young  unfinished  cottage  spy  ; 
All  will  not  heed  thee  on  that  swinging  bough, 
Nor  care  that  round  thy  shelter  spring  the  leaves, 
Nor  watch  thee  on  the  pool's  wet  margin  now 
For  clay  to  plaster  straws  thy  cunning  weaves ; 
All  will  not  hear  thy  sweet  out-pouring  joy, 
That  with  morn's  stillness  blends  the  voice  of  song, 
For  over-anxious  cares  their  souls  employ, 
That  else  upon  thy  music  borne  along 
And  the  light  wings  of  heart-ascending  prayer 
Had  learned  that  Heaven  is  pleased  thy  simple  joys 
to  share. 


POEMS.  125 


THE  COLUMBINE. 

STILL,  still  my  eye  will  gaze  long  fixed  on  thee, 
Till  I  forget  that  I  am  called  a  man, 
And  at  thy  side  fast-rooted  seem  to  be, 
And  the  breeze  comes  my  cheek  with  thine  to  fan. 
Upon  this  craggy  hill  our  life  shall  pass, 
A  life  of  summer  days  and  summer  joys, 
Nodding  our  honey-bells  mid  pliant  grass 
In  which  the  bee  half  hid  his  time  employs ; 
And  here  we'll  drink  with  thirsty  pores  the  rain, 
And  turn  dew-sprinkled  to  the  rising  sun, 
And  look  when  in  the  flaming  west  again 
His  orb  across  the  heaven  its  path  has  run ; 
Here  left  in  darkness  on  the  rocky  steep, 
My  weary  eyes  shall  close  like  folding  flowers  in 
sleep. 


126  POEMS. 


THE  NEW  BIRTH. 

'Tis  a  new  life  ;  —  thoughts  move  not  as  they  did 

With  slow  uncertain  steps  across  my  mind, 

In  thronging  haste  fast  pressing  on  they  bid 

The  portals  open  to  the  viewless  wind 

That  comes  not  save  when  in  the  dust  is  laid 

The  crown  of  pride  that  gilds  each  mortal  brow, 

And  from  before  man's  vision  melting  fade 

The    heavens  and  earth ;  —  their  walls  are  falling 

now.  — 

Fast  crowding  on,  each  thought  asks  utterance  strong ; 
Storm-lifted  waves  swift  rushing  to  the  shore, 
On  from  the  sea  they  send  their  shouts  along, 
Back  through  the  cave-worn  rocks  their  thunders 

roar; 

And  I  a  child  of  God  by  Christ  made  free 
Start  from  death's  slumbers  to  Eternity. 


POEMS.  127 


THE  SON. 

FATHER  I  wait  thy  word.     The  sun  doth  stand 
Beneath  the  mingling  line  of  night  and  day, 
A  listening  servant,  waiting  thy  command 
To  roll  rejoicing  on  its  silent  way ; 
The  tongue  of  time  abides  the  appointed  hour, 
Till  on  our  ear  its  solemn  warnings  fall ; 
The  heavy  cloud  withholds  the  pelting  shower, 
Then  every  drop  speeds  onward  at  thy  call ; 
The  bird  reposes  on  the  yielding  bough, 
With  breast  unswollen  by  the  tide  of  song, 
So  does  my  spirit  wait  thy  presence  now 
To  pour  thy  praise  in  quickening  life  along, 
Chiding  with  voice  divine  man's  lengthened  sleep, 
While  round  the  Unuttered  Word  and  Love  their 
vigils  keep. 


128  POEMS. 


IN  HIM  WE  LIVE . 

FATHER  !  I  bless  thy  name  that  I  do  live, 
And  in  each  motion  am  made  rich  with  thee, 
That  when  a  glance  is  all  that  I  can  give, 
It  is  a  kingdom's  wealth  if  I  but  see  ; 
This  stately  body  cannot  move,  save  I 
Will  to  its  nobleness  my  little  bring  ; 
My  voice  its  measured  cadence  will  not  try, 
Save  I  with  every  note  consent  to  sing ; 
I  cannot  raise  my  hands  to  hurt  or  bless, 
But  I  with  every  action  must  conspire  ; 
To  show  me  there  how  little  I  possess, 
And  yet  that  little  more  than  I  desire  ; 
May  each  new  act  my  new  allegiance  prove, 
Till  in  thy  perfect  love  I  ever  live  and  move. 


POEMS.  129 


ENOCH. 

I  LOOKED  to  find  a  man  who  walked  with  God, 
Like  the  translated  patriarch  of  old ;  — 
Though  gladdened  millions  on  his  footstool  trod, 
Yet  none  with  him  did  such  sweet  converse  hold  ; 
I  heard  the  wind  in  low  complaint  go  by 
That  none  its  melodies  like  him  could  hear ; 
Day  unto  day  spoke  wisdom  from  on  high, 
Yet  none  like  David  turned  a  willing  ear ; 
God  walked  alone  unhonored  through  the  earth ; 
For  him  no  heart-built  temple  open  stood, 
The  soul  forgetful  of  her  nobler  birth 
Had  hewn  him  lofty  shrines  of  stone  and  wood, 
And  left  unfinished  and  in  ruins  still 
The  only  temple  he  delights  to  fill. 


130  POEMS. 


THE  MORNING  WATCH. 

'Tis  near  the  morning  watch,  the  dim  lamp  burns 
But  scarcely  shows  how  dark  the  slumbering  street; 
No  sound  of  life  the  silent  mart  returns  ; 
No  friends  from  house  to  house  their  neighbors 

'  greet ; 

It  is  the  sleep  of  death  ;  a  deeper  sleep 
Than  e'er  before  on  mortal  eyelids  fell ; 
No  stars  above  the  gloom  their  places  keep  ; 
No  faithful  watchmen  of  the  morning  tell ; 
Yet  still  they  slumber  on,  though  rising  day 
Hath  through  their  windows  poured  the  awakening 

light; 

Or,  turning  in  their  sluggard  trances,  say  — 
"  There  yet  are  many  hours  to  fill  the  night ;" 
They  rise  not  yet ;  while  on  the  bridegroom  goes 
'Till  he  the  day's  bright  gates  forever  on  them  close ! 


POEMS.  131 


THE  LIVING  GOD. 

THERE  is  no  death  with  Thee  !  each  plant  and  tree 
In  living  haste  their  stems  push  onward  still, 
The  pointed  blade,  each  rooted  trunk  we  see 
In  various  movement  all  attest  thy  will ; 
The  vine  must  die  when  its  long  race  is  run, 
The  tree  must  fall  when  it  no  more  can  rise ; 
The  worm  has  at  its  root  his  task  begun, 
And  hour  by  hour  his  steady  labor  plies ; 
Nor  man  can  pause  but  in  thy  will  must  grow, 
And,  as  his  roots  within  more  deep  extend, 
He  shall  o'er  sons  of  sons  his  branches  throw, 
And  to  the  latest  born  his  shadows  lend ; 
Nor  know  in  thee  disease  nor  length  of  days, 
But  lift  his  head  forever  in  thy  praise. 


132  POEMS. 


THE  GARDEN. 

I  SAW  the  spot  where  our  first  parents  dwelt ; 
And  yet  it  wore  to  me  no  face  of  change, 
For  while  amid  its  fields  and  groves  I  felt 
As  if  I  had  not  sinned,  nor  thought  it  strange ; 
My  eye  seemed  but  a  part  of  every  sight, 
My  ear  heard  music  in  each  sound  that  rose, 
Each  sense  forever  found  a  new  delight, 
Such  as  the  spirit's  vision  only  knows ; 
Each  act  some  new  and  ever-varying  joy 
Did  by  my  father's  love  for  me  prepare ; 
To  dress  the  spot  my  ever  fresh  employ, 
And  in  the  glorious  whole  with  Him  to  share ; 
No  more  without  the  flaming  gate  to  stray, 
No  more  for  sin's  dark  stain  the  debt  of  death  to  pay. 


POEMS.  133 


THE  SONG. 

WHEN  I  would  sing  of  crooked  streams  and  fields, 

On,  on  from  me  they  stretch  too  far  and  wide, 

And  at  their  look  my  song  all  powerless  yields, 

And  down  the  river  bears  me  with  its  tide ; 

Amid  the  fields  I  am  a  child  again, 

The  spots  that  then  I  loved  I  love  the  more, 

My  fingers  drop  the  strangely-scrawling  pen, 

And  I  remember  nought  but  nature's  lore  ; 

I  plunge  me  in  the  river's  cooling  wave, 

Or  on  the  embroidered  bank  admiring  lean, 

Now  some  endangered  insect  life  to  save, 

Now  watch  the  pictured  flowers  and  grasses  green  ; 

Forever  playing  where  a  boy  I  played, 

By  hill  and  grove,  by  field  and  stream  delayed. 


134  POEMS. 


LOVE. 

I  ASKED  of  Time  to  tell  me  where  was  Love ; 
He  pointed  to  her  foot-steps  on  the  snow, 
Where  first  the  angel  lighted  from  above, 
And  bid  me  note  the  way  and  onward  go ; 
Through  populous  streets  of  cities  spreading  wide, 
By  lonely  cottage  rising  on  the  moor, 
Where  bursts  from  sundered  cliff  the  struggling 

tide, 

To  where  it  hails  the  sea  with  answering  roar, 
She  led  me  on ;  o'er  mountains'  frozen  head, 
Where  mile  on  mile  still  stretches  on  the  plain, 
Then  homeward  whither  first  my  feet  she  led, 
I  traced  her  path  along  the  snow  again, 
But  there  the  sun  had  melted  from  the  earth 
The  prints  where  first  she  trod,  a  child  of  mortal 

birth. 


POEMS.  135 


DAY. 

DAY  !  I  lament  that  none  can  hymn  thy  praise 
In  fitting  strains,  of  all  thy  riches  bless ; 
Though  thousands  sport  them  in  thy  golden  rays, 
Yet  none  like  thee  their  Maker's  name  confess. 
Great  fellow  of  my  being !  woke  with  me 
Thou  dost  put  on  thy  dazzling  robes  of  light, 
And  onward  from  the  east  go  forth  to  free 
Thy  children  from  the  bondage  of  the  night ; 
I  hail  thee,  pilgrim  !  on  thy  lonely  way, 
Whose  looks  on  all  alike  benignant  shine  ; 
A  child  of  light,  like  thee,  I  cannot  stay, 
But  on  the  world  1  bless  must  soon  decline, 
New  rising  still,  though  setting  to  mankind, 
And  ever  in  the  eternal  West  my  dayspring  find. 


w. 

136  POEMS. 

NIGHT. 

I  THANK  thee,  Father,  that  the  night  is  near 
When  I  this  conscious  being  may  resign  ; 
Whose  only  task  thy  words  of  love  to  hear, 
And  in  thy  acts  to  find  each  act  of  mine ; 
A  task  too  great  to  give  a  child  like  me, 
The  myriad-handed  labors  of  the  day, 
Too  many  for  my  closing  eyes  to  see, 
Thy  words  too  frequent  for  my  tongue  to  say  ; 
Yet  when  thou  see'st  me  burthened  by  thy  love, 
Each  other  gift  more  lovely  then  appears, 
For  dark-robed  night  comes  hovering  from  above, 
And  all  thine  other  gifts  to  me  endears ; 
And  while  within  her  darkened  couch  I  sleep, 
Thine  eyes  untired  above  will  constant  vigils  keep. 


POEMS.  137 


THE  LATTER  RAIN. 

THE  latter  rain, — it  falls  in  anxious  haste 
Upon  the  sun-dried  fields  and  branches  bare, 
Loosening  with  searching  drops  the  rigid  waste, 
As  if  it  would  each  root's  lost  strength  repair ; 
But  not  a  blade  grows  green  as  in  the  Spring, 
No  swelling  twig  puts  forth  its  thickening  leaves ; 
The  robins  only  mid  the  harvests  sing 
Pecking  the  grain  that  scatters  from  the  sheaves  ; 
The  rain  falls  still, — the  fruit  all  ripened  drops, 
It  pierces  chestnut  burr  and  walnut  shell, 
The  furrowed  fields  disclose  the  yellow  crops, 
Each  bursting  pod  of  talents  used  can  tell, 
And  all  that  once  received  the  early  rain 
Declare  to  man  it  was  not  sent  in  vain. 


138  POEMS. 


THE  SLAVE. 

I  SAW  him  forging  link  by  link  his  chain, 
Yet  while  he  felt  its  length  he  thought  him  free, 
And  sighed  for  those  borne  o'er  the  barren  main 
To  bondage  that  to  his  would  freedom  be ; 
Yet  on  he  walked  with  eyes  far-gazing  still 
On  wrongs  that  from  his  own  dark  bosom  flowed, 
And  while  he  thought  to  do  his  master's  will 
He  but  the  more  his  disobedience  showed ; 
I  heard  a  wild  rose  by  the  stony  wall, 
Whose  fragrance  reached  me  in  the  passing  gale, 
A  lesson  give  —  it  gave  alike  to  all  — 
And  I  repeat  the  moral  of  its  tale, 
"  That  from  the  spot  where  deep  its  dark  roots  grew 
Bloomed  forth  the  fragrant  rose  that  all  delight  to 
view." 


POEMS.  139 


BREAD. 

LONG  do  we  live  upon  the  husks  of  corn, 
While  'neath  untasted  lie  the  kernels  still, 
Heirs  of  the  kingdom,  but  in  Christ  unborn, 
Fain  with  swine's  food  would  we  our  hunger  fill ; 
We  eat,  but  'tis  not  of  the  bread  from  heaven ; 
We  drink,  but  'tis  not  from  the  stream  of  life ; 
Our  swelling  actions  want  the  little  leaven 
To  make  them  with  the  sighed-for  blessing  rife  ; 
We  wait  unhappy  on  a  stranger's  board, 
While  we  the  master's  friend  by  right  should  live, 
Enjoy  with  him  the  fruits  our  labors  stored, 
And  to  the  poor  with  him  the  pittance  give  ; 
No  more  to  want,  the  long  expected  heir 
With  Christ  the  Father's  love  forevermore  to  share. 


140  POEMS. 


THE  SPIRIT  LAND. 

FATHER  !  thy  wonders  do  not  singly  stand, 

Nor  far  removed  where  feet  have  seldom  strayed ; 

Around  us  ever  lies  the  enchanted  land 

In  marvels  rich  to  thine  own  sons  displayed ; 

In  finding  thee  are  all  things  round  us  found  ; 

In  losing  thee  are  all  things  lost  beside  ; 

Ears  have  we  but  in  vain  strange  voices  sound, 

And  to  our  eyes  the  vision  is  denied ; 

We  wander  in  the  country  far  remote, 

Mid  tombs  and  ruined  piles  in  death  to  dwell ; 

Or  on  the  records  of  past  greatness  dote, 

And  for  a  buried  soul  the  living  sell ; 

While  on  our  path  bewildered  falls  the  night 

That  ne'er  returns  us  to  the  fields  of  light. 


POEMS.  141 


WORSHIP. 

THERE  is  no  worship  now, — the  idol  stands 
Within  the  spirit's  holy  resting  place  ! 
Millions  before  it  bend  with  upraised  hands, 
And  with  their  gifts  God's  purer  shrine  disgrace ; 
The  prophet  walks  unhonored  mid  the  crowd 
That  to  the  idol's  temple  daily  throng ; 
His  voice  unheard  above  their  voices  loud, 
His  strength  too  feeble  'gainst  the  torrent  strong  ; 
But  there  are  bounds  that  ocean's  rage  can  stay 
When  wave  on  wave  leaps  madly  to  the  shore : 
And  soon  the  prophet's  word  shall  men  obey, 
And  hushed  to  peace  the  billows  cease  to  roar ; 
For  he  who  spoke  —  and  warring  winds  kept  peace, 
Commands  again  —  and  man's  wild  passions  cease. 


143 


POEMS. 


.  THE  SOLDIER. 

HE  was  not  armed  like  those  of  eastern  clime, 
Whose  heavy  axes  felled  their  heathen  foe  ; 
Nor  was  he  clad  like  those  of  later  time, 
Whose  breast- worn  cross  betrayed  no  cross  below ; 
Nor  was  he  of  the  tribe  of  Levi  born, 
Whose  pompous  rites  proclaim  how  vain  their  prayer ; 
Whose  chilling  words  are  heard  at  night  and  morn, 
Who  rend  their  robes  but  still  their  hearts  would 

spare ; 

But  he  nor  steel  nor  sacred  robe  had  on, 
Yet  went  he  forth  in  God's  almighty  power ; 
He  spoke  the  word  whose  will  is  ever  done 
From  day's  first  dawn  till  earth's  remotest  hour ; 
And  mountains  melted  from  his  presence  down, 
And  hell  affrighted  fled  before  his  frown. 


POEMS.  143 


THE  TREES  OF  LIFE. 

FOR  those  who  worship  Thee  there  is  no  death, 
For  all  they  do  is  but  with  Thee  to  dwell ; 
Now  while  I  take  from  Thee  this  passing  breath, 
It  is  but  of  thy  glorious  name  to  tell ; 
Nor  words  nor  measured  sounds  have  I  to  find, 
But  in  them  both  my  soul  doth  ever  flow ; 
They  come  as  viewless  as  the  unseen  wind, 
And  tell  thy  noiseless  steps  where'er  I  go ; 
The  trees  that  grow  along  thy  living  stream, 
And  from  its  springs  refreshment  ever  drink, 
Forever  glittering  in  thy  morning  beam 
They  bend  them  o'er  the  river's  grassy  brink 
And  as  more  high  and  wide  their  branches  grow 
They  look  more  fair  within  the  depths  below. 


144  POEMS. 


THE  SPIRIT. 

I  WOULD  not  breathe,  -when  blows  thy  mighty  wind 
O'er  desolate  hill  and  winter-blasted  plain, 
But  stand  in  waiting  hope  if  I  may  find 
Each  flower  recalled  to  newer  life  again 
That  now  unsightly  hides  itself  from  Thee, 
Amid  the  leaves  or  rustling  grasses  dry, 
With  ice-cased  rock  and  snowy-mantled  tree 
Ashamed  lest  Thou  its  nakedness  should  spy ; 
But  Thou  shalt  breathe  and  every  rattling  bough 
Shall  gather  leaves ;  each  rock  with  rivers  flow  ; 
And  they  that  hide  them  from  thy  presence  now 
In  new  found  robes  along  thy  path  shall  glow, 
And  meadows  at  thy  coming  fall  and  rise, 
Their  green  waves  sprinkled  with  a  thousand  eyes. 


POEMS.  145 


THE  PRESENCE. 

I  SIT  within  my  room,  and  joy  to  find 

That  Thou  who  always  lov'st,  art  with  me  here, 

That  I  am  never  left  by  Thee  behind, 

But  by  thyself  Thou  keep'st  me  ever  near ; 

The  fire  burns  brighter  when  with  Thee  I  look, 

And  seems  a  kinder  servant  sent  to  me ; 

With  gladder  heart  I  read  thy  holy  book, 

Because  thou  art  the  eyes  by  which  I  see ; 

This  aged  chair,  that  table,  watch  and  door 

Around  in  ready  service  ever  wait ; 

Nor  can  I  ask  of  Thee  a  menial  more 

To  fill  the  measure  of  my  large  estate, 

For  Thou  thyself,  with  all  a  father's  care, 

Where'er  I  turn,  art  ever  with  me  there. 

10 


146  POEMS. 


THE  DEAD. 

I  SEE  them,  —  crowd  on  crowd  they  walk  the  earth 
Dry  leafless  trees  to  autumn  wind  laid  bare ; 
And  in  their  nakedness  find  cause  for  mirth, 
And  all  unclad  would  winter's  rudeness  dare  ; 
No  sap  doth  through  their  clattering  branches  flow, 
Whence  springing  leaves  and  blossoms  bright  ap- 
pear ; 

Their  hearts  the  living  God  have  ceased  to  know 
Who  gives  the  spring  time  to  th'  expectant  year ; 
They  mimic  life,  as  if  from  him  to  steal 
His  glow  of  health  to  paint  the  livid  cheek ; 
They  borrow  words  for  thoughts  they  cannot  feel, 
That  with  a  seeming  heart  their  tongue  may  speak ; 
And  in  their  show  of  life  more  dead  they  live 
Than  those  that  to  the  earth  with  many  tears  they 
give. 


POEMS.  147 


I  WAS  SICK  AND  IN  PRISON. 

THOU  hast  not  left  the  rough-barked  tree  to  grow 
Without  a  mate  upon  the  river's  bank  ; 
Nor  dost  Thou  on  one  flower  the  rain  bestow, 
But  many  a  cup  the  glittering  drops  has  drank ; 
The  bird  must  sing  to  one  who  sings  again, 
Else  would  her  note  less  welcome  be  to  hear ; 
Nor  hast  Thou  bid  thy  word  descend  in  vain, 
But  soon  some  answering  voice  shall  reach  my  ear ; 
Then  shall  the  brotherhood  of  peace  begin, 
And  the  new  song  be  raised  that  never  dies, 
That  shall  the  soul  from  death  and  darkness  win, 
And  burst  the  prison  where  the  captive  lies ; 
And  one  by  one  new-born  shall  join  the  strain, 
Till  earth  restores  her  sons  to  heaven  again. 


148 


POEMS. 


THE  VIOLET. 

THOU  tellest  truths  unspoken  yet  by  man 
By  this  thy  lonely  home  and  modest  look ; 
For  he  has  not  the  eyes  such  truths  to  scan, 
Nor  learns  to  read  from  such  a  lowly  book ; 
With  him  it  is  not  life  firm-fixed  to  grow 
Beneath  the  outspreading  oaks  and  rising  pines, 
Content  this  humble  lot  of  thine  to  know, 
The  nearest  neighbor  of  the  creeping  vines ; 
Without  fixed  root  he  cannot  trust  like  thee 
The  rain  will  know  the  appointed  hour  to  fall, 
But  fears  lest  sun  or  shower  may  hurtful  be, 
And  would  delay  or  speed  them  with  his  call ; 
Nor  trust  like  thee  when  wintry  winds  blow  cold, 
Whose  shrinking  form  the  withered  leaves  enfold. 


POEMS.  149 


THE  HEART. 

THERE  is  a  cup  of  sweet  or  bitter  drink, 
Whose  waters  ever  o'er  the  brim  must  well, 
Whence  flow  pure  thoughts  of    love   as  angels 

think, 

Or  of  its  dsBmon  depths  the  tongue  will  tell ; 
That  cup  can  ne'er  be  cleansed  from  outward  stains 
While  from  within  the  tide  forever  flows ; 
And  soon  it  wearies  out  the  fruitless  pains 
The  treacherous  hand  on  such  a  task  bestows ; 
But  ever  bright  its  chrystal  sides  appear, 
While  runs  the  current  from  its  outlet  pure ; 
And  pilgrims  hail  its  sparkling  waters  near, 
And  stoop  to  drink  the  healing  fountain  sure, 
And  bless  the  cup  that  cheers  their  fainting  soul 
While  through  this  parching  waste  they  seek  their 
heavenly  goal. 


150  POEMS. 


THE  ROBE. 

x 

EACH  naked  branch,  the  yellow  leaf  or  brown, 

The  rugged  rock,  and  death-deformed  plain 

Lie  white  beneath  the  winter's  feathery  down, 

Nor  doth  a  spot  unsightly  now  remain ; 

On  sheltering  roof,  on  man  himself  it  falls ; 

But  him  no  robe,  not  spotless  snow  makes  clean ; 

Beneath,  his  corse-like  spirit  ever  calls, 

That  on  it  too  may  fall  the  heavenly  screen ; 

But  all  in  vain,  its  guilt  can  never  hide 

From  the  quick  spirit's  heart- deep  searching  eye, 

There  barren  plains,  and  caverns  yawning  wide 

Ever  lie  naked  to  the  passer  by  ; 

Nor  can  one  thought  deformed  the  presence  shun, 

But  to  the  spirit's  gaze  stands  bright  as  in  the  sun-. 


POEMS.  151 


LIFE. 

IT  is  not  life  upon  Thy  gifts  to  live, 
But,  to  grow  fixed  with  deeper  roots  in  Thee ; 
And  when  the  sun  and  shower  their  bounties  give, 
To  send  out  thick-leaved  limbs  ;  a  fruitful  tree, 
Whose  green  head  meets  the  eye  for  many  a  mile, 
Whose  moss-grown  arms  their  rigid  branches  rear, 
And  full-faced  fruits  their  blushing  welcome  smile 
As  to  its  goodly  shade  our  feet  draw  near  ; 
Who  tastes  its  gifts  shall  never  hunger  more, 
For  'tis  the  Father  spreads  the  pure  repast, 
Who,  while  we  eat,  renews  the  ready  store, 
Which  at  his  bounteous  board  must  ever  last ; 
For  none  the  bridegroom's  supper  shall  attend, 
Who  will  not  hear  and  make  his  word  their  friend. 


152  POEMS. 


THE  WAR. 

I  SAW  a  war,  yet  none  the  trumpet  blew, 
Nor  in  their  hands  the  steel-wrought  weapons  bare  ; 
And  in  that  conflict  armed  there  fought  but  few, 
And  none  that  in  the  world's  loud  tumults  share ; 
They  fought  against  their  wills,  —  the  stubborn  foe 
That  mail-clad  warriors  left  unfought  within, 
And  wordy  champions  left  unslain  below,  — 
The  ravening  wolf  though  drest  in  fleecy  skin ;  — 
They  fought  for  peace,  —  not  that  the  world  can  give, 
Whose  tongue  proclaims  the  war    its  hands  have 

ceased 

And  bids  us  as  each  other's  neighbor  live, 
Ere  haughty  Self  within  us  has  deceased ; 
They  fought  for  him  whose  kingdom  must  increase, 
Good  will  to  men,  on  earth  forever  peace. 


POEMS.  153 


THE  GRAVE  YARD. 

MY  heart  grows  sick  before  the  wide-spread  death, 
That  walks  and  speaks  in  seeming  life  around ; 
And  I  would  love  the  corse  without  a  breath, 
That  sleeps  forgotten  'neath  the  cold,  cold  ground  ; 
For  these  do  tell  the  story  of  decay, 
The  worm  and  rotten  flesh  hide  not  nor  lie ; 
But  this,  though  dying  too  from  day  to  day, 
With  a  false  show  doth  cheat  the  longing  eye ; 
And  hide  the  worm  that  gnaws  the  core  of  life, 
With  painted  cheek  and  smooth  deceitful  skin ; 
Covering  a  grave  with  sights  of  darkness  rife, 
A  secret  cavern  filled  with  death  and  sin ; 
And  men  walk  o'er  these  graves  and  know  it  not, 
For  in  the  body's  health  the  soul's  forgot. 


154  POEMS. 


THY  BROTHER'S  BLOOD. 

I  HAVE  no  Brother,  —  they  who  meet  me  now 

Offer  a  hand  with  their  own  wills  defiled, 

And,  while  they  wear  a  smooth  imwrinkled  brow, 

Know  not  that  Truth  can  never  be  beguiled ; 

Go  wash  the  hand  that  still  betrays  thy  guilt ; — 

Before  the  spirit's  gaze  what  stain  can  hide  ? 

Abel's  red  blood  upon  the  earth  is  spilt, 

And  by  thy  tongue  it  cannot  be  denied  ; 

I  hear  not  with  the  ear,  —  the  heart  doth  tell 

Its  secret  deeds  to  me  untold  before ; 

Go,  all  its  hidden  plunder  quickly  sell, 

Then  shalt  thou  cleanse  thee   from   thy  brother's 

gore, 

Then  will  I  take  thy  gift ;  — that  bloody  stain 
Shall  not  be  seen  upon  thy  hand  again. 


POEMS.  155 


THE  JEW. 

THOU  art  more  deadly  than  the  Jew  of  old, 
Thou  hast  his  weapons  hidden  in  thy  speech ; 
And  though  thy  hand  from  me  thou  dost  withhold, 
They  pierce  where  sword  and  spear  could  never 

reach. 

Thou  hast  me  fenced  about  with  thorny  talk, 
To  pierce  my  soul  with  anguish  while  I  hear ; 
And  while  amid  thy  populous  streets  I  walk, 
I  feel  at  every  step  the  entering  spear ; 
Go,  cleanse  thy  lying  mouth  of  all  its  guile 
That  from  the  will  within  thee  ever  flows ; 
Go,  cleanse  the  temple  thou  dost  now  defile, 
Then  shall  I  cease  to  feel  thy  heavy  blows ; 
And  come  and  tread  with  me  the  path  of  peace, 
And  from  thy  brother's  harm  forever  cease. 


156  POEMS. 


FAITH. 

THERE  is  no  faith ;  the  mountain  stands  within 
Still  unrebuked,  its  summit  reaches  heaven ; 
And  every  action  adds  its  load  of  sin, 
For  every  action  wants  the  little  leaven  ; 
There  is  no  prayer ;  it  is  but  empty  sound, 
That  stirs  with  frequent  breath  the  yielding  air, 
With  every  pulse  they  are  more  strongly  bound, 
Who  make  the  blood  of  goats  the  voice  of  prayer  ; 
Oh  heal  them,  heal  them,  Father,  with  thy  word,  — 
Their  sins  cry  out  to  thee  from  every  side  ; 
From  son  and  sire,  from  slave  and  master  heard, 
Their  voices  fill  the  desert  country  wide  ; 
And  bid  thee  hasten  to  relieve  and  save, 
By  him  who  rose  triumphant  o'er  the  grave. 


POEMS.  157 


THE  ARK. 

THERE  is  no  change  of  time  and  place  with  Thee ; 
Where'er  I  go,  with  me  'tis  still  the  same ; 
Within  thy  presence  I  rejoice  to  be, 
And  always  hallow  thy  most  holy  name ; 
The  world  doth  ever  change ;  there  is  no  peace 
Among  the  shallows  of  its  storm-vexed  breast ; 
With  every  breath  the  frothy  waves  increase, 
They  toss  up  mire  and  dirt,  they  cannot  rest ; 
I  thank  Thee  that  within  thy  strong*built  ark 
My  soul  across  the  uncertain  sea  can  sail, 
And  though  the  night  of  death  be  long  and  dark, 
My  hopes  in  Christ  shall  reach  within  the  veil ; 
And  to  the  promised  haven  steady  steer, 
Whose  rest  to  those  who  love  is  ever  near. 


158 


POEMS. 


THE  EARTH. 

I  WOULD  lie  low,  the  ground  on  which  men  tread, 
Swept  by  Thy  spirit  like  the  wind  of  heaven  ; 
An  earth  where  gushing  springs  and  corn  for  bread, 
By  me  at  every  season  should  be  given ; 
Yet  not  the  water  or  the  bread  that  now 
Supplies  their  tables  with  its  daily  food, 
But  thou  wouldst  give  me  fruit  for  every  bough, 
Such  as  Thou  givest  me,  and  calPst  it  good ; 
And  water  from  the  stream  of  life  should  flow, 
By  every  dwelling  that  thy  love  has  built, 
Whose  taste  the  ransomed  of  thy  Son  shall  know, 
Whose  robes  are  washed  from  every  stain  of  guilt ; 
And  men  would  own  it  was  thy  hand  that  blest, 
And  from  my  bosom  find  a  surer  rest. 


POEMS.  159 


THE  ROSE. 

THE  rose  thou  show's!  me  has  lost  all  its  hue, 
For  thou  dost  seem  to  me  than  it  less  fair ; 
For  when  I  look  I  turn  from  it  to  you, 
And  feel  the  flower  has  been  thine  only  care ; 
Thou  could'st  have  grown  as  freely  by  its  side 
As  spring  these  buds  from  out  the  parent  stem, 
But  thou  art  from  thy  Father  severed  wide, 
And  turnest  from  thyself  to  look  at  them, 
Thy  words  do  not  perfume  the  summer  air, 
Nor  draw  the  eye  and  ear  like  this  thy  flower ; 
No  bees  shall  make  thy  lips  their  daily  care, 
And  sip  the  sweets  distilled  from  hour  to  hour ; 
Nor  shall  new  plants  from  out  thy  scattered  seed, 
O'er  many  a  field  the  eye  with  beauty  feed. 


160  POEMS. 


MORNING. 

THE  light  will  never  open  sightless  eyes, 

It  comes  to  those  who  willingly  would  see  ; 

And  every  object,  —  hill,  and  stream,  and  skies, — 

Rejoice  within  th'  encircling  line  to  be ; 

'Tis  day,  —  the  field  is  filled  with  busy  hands, 

The  shop  resounds  with  noisy  workmen's  din, 

The  traveller  with  his  staff  already  stands 

His  yet  unmeasured  journey  to  begin ; 

The  light  breaks  gently  too  within  the  breast, — 

Yet  there  no  eye  awaits  the  crimson  morn, 

The  forge  and  noisy  anvil  are  at  rest, 

Nor  men  nor  oxen  tread  the  fields  of  corn, 

Nor  pilgrim  lifts  his  staff,  —  it  is  no  day 

To  those  who  find  on  earth  their  place  to  stay. 


POEMS.  161 


NATURE. 

THE  bubbling  brook  doth  leap  when  I  come  by, 

Because  my  feet  find  measure  with  its  call, 

The  birds  know  when  the  friend  they  love  is  nigh, 

For  I  am  known  to  them  both  great  and  small ; 

The  flower  that  on  the  lovely  hill-side  grows 

Expects  me  there  when  Spring  its  bloom  has  given ; 

And  many  a  tree  and  bush  my  wanderings  knows, 

And  e'en  the  clouds  and  silent  stars  of  heaven ; 

For  he  who  with  his  Maker  walks  aright, 

Shall  be  their  lord  as  Adam  was  before ; 

His  ear  shall  catch  each  sound  with  new  delight, 

Each  object  wear  the  dress  that  then  it  wore  ; 

And  he,  as  when  erect  in  soul  he  stood, 

Hear  from  his  Father's  lips  that  all  is  good. 

11 


162  POEMS. 


CHANGE. 

FATHER  !  there  is  no  change  to  live  with  Thee, 

Save  that  in  Christ  I  grow  from  day  to  day, 

In  each  new  word  I  hear,  each  thing  I  see, 

I  but  rejoicing  hasten  on  the  way ; 

The  morning  comes  with  blushes  overspread. 

And  I  new-wakened  find  a  morn  within ; 

And  in  its  modest  dawn  around  me  shed, 

Thou  hear'st  the  prayer  and  the  ascending  hymn ; 

Hour  follows  hour,  the  lengthening  shades  descend, 

Yet  they  could  never  reach  as  far  as  me, 

Did  not  thy  love  thy  kind  protection  lend, 

That  I  a  child  might  sleep  awhile  on  Thee, 

Till  to  the  light  restored  by  gentle  sleep 

With  new-found  zeal  I  might  thy  precepts  keep. 


POEMS.  163 


THE  POOR. 

I  WALK  the  streets  and  though  not  meanly  drest, 
Yet  none  so  poor  as  can  with  me  compare ; 
For  none  though  weary  call  me  into  rest, 
And  though  I  hunger,  none  their  substance  share  ; 
I  ask  not  for  my  stay  the  broken  reed, 
That  fails  when  most  I  want  a  friendly  arm ; 
I  cannot  on  the  loaves  and  fishes  feed 
That  want  the  blessing  that  they  may  not  harm ; 
I  only  ask  the  living  word  to  hear 
From  tongues  that  now  but  speak  to  utter  death ; 
I  thirst  for  one.cool  cup  of  water  clear 
But  drink  the  riled  stream  of  lying  breath  ; 
And  wander  on. though  in  my  Fatherland, 
Yet  hear  no  welcome  voice  and  see  no  beckoning 
hand. 


164  POEMS. 


THE  CLAY. 

THOU  shalt  do  what  Thou  wilt  with  thine  own  hand, 
Thou  form'st  the  spirit  like  the  moulded  clay ; 
For  those  who  love  Thee  keep  thy  just  command, 
And  in  thine  image  grow  as  they  obey ; 
New  tints  and  forms  with  every  hour  they  take 
Whose  life  is  fashioned  by  thy  spirit's  power ; 
The  crimson  dawn  is  round  them  when  they  wake, 
And  golden  triumphs  wait  the  evening  hour  ; 
The  queenly-sceptred  night  their  souls  receives, 
And  spreads  their  pillows  'neath  her  sable  tent ; 
Above  them  Sleep  their  palm  with  poppy  weaves. 
Sweet  rest  Thou  hast  to  all  who  labor  lent ; 
That  they  may  rise  refreshed  to  light  again 
And  with  Thee  gather  in  the  whitening  grain. 


POEMS.  165 


WHO  HATH  EARS  TO  HEAR  LET  HIM 
HEAR. 

THE  sun  doth  not  the  hidden  place  reveal, 
Whence  pours  at  morn  his  golden  flood  of  light ; 
But  what  the  night's  dark  breast  would  fain  conceal, 
In  its  true  colors  walks  before  our  sight ; 
The  bird  does  not  betray  the  secret  springs, 
Whence  note  on  note  her  music  sweetly  pours ; 
Yet  turns  the  ear  attentive  while  she  sings, 
The  willing  heart  while  falls  the  strain  adores ; 
So  shall  the  spirit  tell  not  whence  its  birth, 
But  in  its  light  thine  untold  deeds  lay  bare  ; 
And  while  it  walks  with  thee  flesh-clothed  the  earth, 
Its  words  shall  of  the  Father's  love  declare  ; 
And  happy  those  whose  ears  shall  hail  its  voice, 
And  clean  within  the  day  it  gives  rejoice. 


POEMS, 


TO  THE  PURE  ALL  THINGS  ARE  PURE, 

THE  flowers  I  pass  have  eyes  that  look  at  me, 
The  birds  have  ears  that  hear  my  spirit's  voice, 
And  I  am  glad  the  leaping  brook  to  see, 
Because  it  does  at  my  light  step  rejoice. 
Come,  brothers,. all  who  tread  the  grassy  hill, 
Or  wander  thoughtless  o'er  the  blooming  fields, 
Come  learn  the  sweet  obedience  of  the  will ; 
Thence  every  sight  and  sound  new  pleasure  yields. 
Nature  shall  seem  another  house  of  thine, 
When  he  who  formed  thee,  bids  it  live  and  play. 
And  in  thy  rambles  e'en  the  creeping  vine 
Shall  keep  with  thee  a  jocund  holiday, 
And  every  plant,  and  bird,  and  insect,  be 
Thine  own  companions  born  for  harmony. 


POEMS.  167 


HE  WAS  ACQUAINTED  WITH  GRIEF. 

I  CANNOT  tell  the  sorrows  that  I  feel 

By  the  night's  darkness,  by  the  prison's  gloom ; 

There  is  no  sight  that  can  the  death  reveal 

The  spirit  suffers  in  a  living  tomb  ; 

There  is  no  sound  of  grief  that  mourners  raise, 

No  moaning  of  the  wind,  or  dirge-like  sea, 

Nor  hymns,  though  prophet  tones  inspire  the  lays, 

That  can  the  spirit's  grief  awake  in  thee. 

Thou  too  must  suffer  as  it  suffers  here 

The  death  in  Christ  to  know  the  Father's  love ; 

Then  in  the  strains  that  angels  love  to  hear 

Thou  too  shalt  hear  the  Spirit's  song  above, 

And  learn  in  grief  what  these  can  never  tell, 

A  note  too  deep  for  earthly  voice  to  swell. 


170  POEMS. 


THE  RAIL  ROAD. 

THOU  great  proclaimer  to  the  outward  eye 
Of  what  the  spirit  too  would  seek  to  tell, 
Onward  thou  go'st,  appointed  from  on  high 
The  other  warnings  of  the  Lord  to  swell ; 
Thou  art  the  voice  of  one  that  through  the  world 
Proclaims  in  startling  tones,  "  Prepare  the  way ;" 
The  lofty  mountain  from  its  seat  is  hurled, 
The  flinty  rocks  thine  onward  march  obey ; 
The  valleys  lifted  from  their  lowly  bed 
O'ertop  the  hills  that  on  them  frowned  before, 
Thou  passest  where  the  living  seldom  tread, 
Through  forests  dark,  where  tides  beneath  thee  roar, 
And  bid'st  man's  dwelling  from  thy  track  remove, 
And  would  with  warning  voice  his  crooked  paths 
reprove. 


POEMS. 


171 


THE  DISCIPLE. 

THOU  wilt  my  hands  employ,  though  others  find 
No  work  for  those  who  praise  thy  name  aright ; 
And  in  their  worldly  wisdom  call  them  blind, 
Whom  thou  has  blest  with  thine  own  spirit's  sight* 
But  while  they  find  no  work  for  thee  to  do, 
And  blindly  on  themselves  alone  rely  ; 
The  child  must  suffer  what  thou  sufferest  too 
And  learn  from  him  thou  sent  e'en  so  to  die  ; 
Thou  art  my  Father,  thou  wilt  give  me  aid 
To  bear  the  wrong  the  Spirit  suffers  here ; 
Thou  hast  thy  help  upon  the  mighty  laid, 
In  him  I  trust,  nor  know  to  want  or  fear, 
But  ever  onward  walk  secure  from  sin, 
For  he  has  conquered  every  foe  within.. 


172  POEMS. 


TIME. 

THERE  is  no  moment  but  whose  flight  doth  bring 
Bright   clouds   and   fluttering   leaves   to   deck   my 

bower ; 

And  I  within  like  some  sweet  bird  must  sing 
To  tell  the  story  of  the  passing  hour  ; 
For  time  has  secrets  that  no  bird  has  sung, 
Nor  changing  leaf  with  changing  season  told  ; 
They  wait  the  utterance  of  some  nobler  tongue 
Like  that  which  spoke  in  prophet  tones  of  old ; 
Then  day  and  night,  and  month  and  year  shall  tell 
The  tale  that  speaks  but  faint  from  bird  and  bough ; 
In  spirit-songs  their  praise  shall  upward  swell 
Nor  longer  pass  heaven's  gate  unheard  as  now, 
But  cause  e'en  angels'  ears  to  catch  the  strain, 
And  send  it  back  to  earth  in  joy  again. 


POEMS.  173 


THE  CALL. 

WHY  art  thou  not  awake,  my  son  ? 
The  morning  breaks  I  formed  for  thee  ; 
And  I  thus  early  by  thee  stand, 
Thy  new-awakening  life  to  see. 

Why  art  thou  not  awake,  my  son  ? 
The  birds  upon  the  bough  rejoice ; 
And  I  thus  early  by  thee  stand, 
To  hear  with  theirs  thy  tuneful  voice. 

Why  sleep'st  thou  still  ?  the  laborers  all 
Are  in  my  vineyard ;  —  hear  them  toil, 
As  for  the  poor  with  harvest  song, 
They  treasure  up  the  wine  and  oiL 

I  come  to  wake  thee  ;  haste,  arise, 
Or  thou  no  share  with  me  can  find  ; 
Thy  sandals  seize,  gird  on  thy  clothes, 
Or  I  must  leave  thee  here  behind. 


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